Another top 25 finish for Afton Swanson

Goldfield native finished 23rd nationally in points

By Phil Monson

Rural Goldfield native Afton Swanson continues her climb on the national drag racing circuit.
The 28-year-old Swanson, who began racing on the Humboldt County Dragway in 2000 at age nine, finished 23rd nationally in points in 2018 in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Top Dragster division.
Swanson finished 25th in points in 2017 but was aided that year by winning a race at Topeka in late May of that year. Her top finish in 2018 was runner-up at St. Louis.
“In 2018 we went to the final round in a national event in St. Louis,” Swanson said. “In 2017 we won a race, so that helped us place a little higher than we did the year before.”
“We still had a pretty good year of racing. To finish in the top 25 nationally out of 500 competitors is still a pretty decent finish,” Swanson said. “To make it to the final round at a national event is one of the big highlights to our 2018 season.”

Swanson, the former Afton Harvey, has paid her dues over the last 19 years. She is a 2009 graduate of Clarion-Goldfield High School. She attended the University of Northern Iowa four years and graduated in 2013 with a degree in marketing management and a minor in Spanish. The last two years of her education at UNI, she had an internship with Denso, a company in Cedar Falls. She was “hired on the spot” at graduation time to work full-time for the company, where she is still employed today.
Afton is a Senior Production Control Specialist with Denso, handling supply chain management for Caterpillar and Bobcat companies.
Her husband is Joe Swanson, a 2008 Humboldt High School graduate, who attended Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge where he studied auto mechanics. His career in mechanics took him to the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area. Joe and Afton now reside in Denver, not a far commute to Waterloo/Cedar Falls each day.
Three years ago Joe and Afton started a new company called Swanson Hydro Graphics. It is a process where car parts are dipped into a tank with a film covering applied. They can even handle other items and have had work done from California to New York.

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