Maxim helping Hendrick team Augusta man gives support at track

The Hendrick Motorsports Team has had an impressive season to date with three drivers in the top six in points in the Sprint Cup standings.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is third in points, Jimmie Johnson is fifth, Jeff Gordon is sixth and Casey Mears is 24th.

But they have only two wins, one for Earnhardt Jr. and another for Johnson, despite combining for 19 top-fives.

And one of the important ingredients in their success has been Augusta’s Scott Maxim, the director of track support for Hendrick who oversees the engine setups at the track.

“It’s been good. We’ve been consistent,” said Maxim. “From there, we need to build. We need to find just a little bit more to take us from the top fives and top tens to get us some more wins.

“We’ve been pretty good at the start of the race, We’ve led quite a few laps but we just haven’t been able to get everything together to get that little bit extra which, a lot of times, gets us the win,” added Maxim. “We’ve got the foundation in place, we’ve just got a little more work to do to get where we need to.”

The Hendrick Motorsports team landed Earnhardt Jr. after he decided to leave Dale Earnhardt Incorporated after last season and Maxim said he has been a valuable addition.

“He’s been real good. He’s a lot of fun to work with. He brings a lot of experience with him. He knows what he’s doing and what he needs,” said Maxim. “He’s a pretty good student of racing, for sure. He had helped us out a lot. He has given us some feedback on what we can do to provide him with the tools he needs to run well.”

Mears is in his last season with the team as Hendrick Motorsports won’t bring him back next season and Maxim is sorry to see him leave.

“He’s been with us almost three years. He’s a great guy. He’s been a lot of fun to work with as well [as Earnhardt Jr.]. It’s been tough. Everyone has put in a lot of effort but we just haven’t been able to get what everyone has been looking for there,” said Maxim. “The opportunity is pretty short for all of us to make this work. The pressure is quite high.”

Maxim has mixed emotions of the Car of Tomorrow, which is being used by every car for every race this season after it was used for some races a year ago.

The idea is to create parity with a unified engine.

“Ultimately, it has closed up the difference between the cars. So track position has become more important and passing has become more difficult,” said Maxim. “Changes have been made throughout the years to tighten things up. It sounds good on paper to make the competition tighter but when everyone out there is running the same speed, it isn’t promoting things like passing or things that can provide good racing.”

He acknowledged that it has helped them “with the simplicity of preparing the cars” since they have just one engine to work on instead of two.

“It has been simplified a lot but now it’s going to take the effort to find a particular combination to take it to another level,” said Maxim.

The Cup series will have the weekend of July 19-20 off and Maxim is going to use his time off to visit a particular vacation spot for the first time.

“I’m going to Bar Harbor,” he grinned.

He took vacation time two years ago to attend the Oxford 250.

“I had a good time. I saw a lot of old friends,” he said.

lmahoney@bangordailynews.net

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