POWNAL, VT – As the 2017 season begins to wind down, so does the schedule for Rob Maxon and the Maxon Racing Team. However, that doesn’t mean their weekends are getting any quieter as the #96 was on track for three consecutive days last week and almost netted a pair of victories.
Friday night was the Northeast Crate Nationals at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway. That is an event that Rob has never been able to qualify for in the past. That all changed this season, however, as he timed very well in qualifying and was able to race his way into the main event.
“Our goal, really, was to make the race as I’ve never qualified for the Nationals before,” Maxon said. Anything more was a bonus for us. We timed in the top 15 and nearly made it through our heat. We won one of the consolation races but missed the set up for the feature. We went with a harder right rear tire than we should have and had too much stagger. The car was awful but we learned a lot with that car so, all-in-all, it was a positive night for us.”
Saturday at Lebanon Valley almost saw the Dane’s Auto Parts #96 in victory lane, if not for an unfortunate situation with another competitor. After starting ninth in the event, Maxon was fighting for the lead with Cody Ochs when disaster struck.
“Saturday was probably one of the most frustrating nights I’ve ever encountered in racing,” he said. The car was handling great as we came from ninth spot to challenge for the lead. I followed Cody for a few laps and saw he was losing the handle getting into turn three so I knew that’s where I had to try and get him.”
Right near the midway point of the race is when Maxon made his move.
“I drove turns one and two so that I could stay right on his back bumper and went hard into three,” he said. “My car works at that end of the speedway. I slid under him and knew I cleared him. I was expecting him to cross over and race me down the frontstretch but that wasn’t the case. He got into my left rear and turned me around. He apologized for it. I really don’t think he did it on purpose. It was a mistake but still sucks. We definitely had a fast car and I knew we were going to be hard to beat.”
Rob rebounded to bring the #96 home in the seventh position. On Sunday night, the team headed to the Glen Ridge Motorsports Park and Maxon was credited with a solid third place finish to end his weekend.
“We really did have a good weekend and closing it out with a top five at Glen Ridge was nice,” he said. “We had a coil go bad in the heat race which made us start further back in the feature. I think we finally got the bugs worked out with that car. I’m very happy with third. It moved us from 13th in points to eighth going into Sunday’s last night of points.”