Mahaney and the Buzz Chew Racing team had joined forces back in the beginning of 2016. Following the Super DIRTcar Series fulltime, Mahaney and the team struggled.

The 28-year-old out of King Ferry, N.Y. has been behind the wheel of Modifieds for eleven years. Since 2011, Mahaney was faithful to Troyer Racecars.

“We were struggling with adapting to different conditions without having to make a lot of adjustments,” Mahaney said. “Once in a while we were hitting on things but we went to a lot of tracks and had to make a lot of changes to adapt to the tracks, as they got really slick.”

It wasn’t until mid season when they started to look for other options.

“You pretty much see Matt Sheppard dominate everywhere with Bicknell so you really can’t contest how well he’s done,” added Mahaney.

What was it that drew the Buzz Chew team to Bicknell?

“The main focus was that we needed to step up our Big Block program,” he said. “Our Small Block program has been running okay but their Big Blocks are really dominant. You can see the results.”

How long did it take Bicknell to have the car race ready?

“We called and they were prepared to get us a brand new car in a short period of time,” he said. “They had a complete car done for us in two weeks.”

Would you recommend Bicknell to anyone else?

“Absolutely. They’ve done a fantastic job with getting our car together. It ran great right out of the box. We only had to make a few small adjustments to get me comfortable in the cockpit. I was comfortable by the second race.”

“The customer service is great,” mentioned Mahaney. “They have a large stock in all of the parts too. When we went there we asked for extra stuff so we could have in case anything happened and they had them all right there in stock. I didn’t have to wait for anything.”

Mahaney’s victory on August 2nd at Fonda Speedway wasn’t just his first win in the new Bicknell but it was the teams first ever victory together since they formed in 2016.

“It felt awesome,” added Mahaney about his win. “When we were coming up to the point where we weren’t going to race for a little while until we got a new car I felt a little bit of pressure because the next thing to replace after the car is the driver.”

Mahaney’s win helped lift a huge weight off his shoulders. “To win the second night out in a new car made me feel great,” he said. “It gave us the confidence that our team can win and confidence in my abilities as a driver. All of the struggling we had been through at the beginning of this year brushes off a little bit. It gave us a bunch of confidence going into these races at the end of the year.”