JOLIET, Illinois – Dakoda Armstrong knows no matter what happens in Saturday’s Drive for Safety 300 at Chicagoland Speedway, he’ll likely need his first career win to compete in the series’ first annual NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase.
Though the likelihood of that happening is slim, Armstrong has kept a positive attitude on the eve of the final XFINITY Series race of the regular season knowing his team has come a long way to even be in their current position.
“Yeah, you know I think we’re kind of at a point where we’re almost too far out making it just having a good finish, so we kind of have to get to the point where someone – one of these guys has to have really bad luck or we’ve got to try to steal away a win here,” said Armstrong. “So I mean I’m proud of our team, you know?”
After parting ways with Richard Petty Motorsports at the end of last season, Armstrong looked at every opportunity to maintain a presence in the XFINITY Series and with an open seat at the improving JGL Racing team — the match was made.
While opening the season with a 14th place finish at Daytona International Speedway, Armstrong while finishing races struggled to find the consistency he needed on a weekly basis to find himself in a position to point his way in, rather than that sacred win.
Not lacking from effort and long nights from his Steven Lane led team, the team has work harder behind the scenes wanting to give their driver better cars. Their results thus far in the second half of the year have proved the hard work is paying off. Armstrong’s worst finish in the last 11 races is 21st on the soaked road course at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
But no matter what the results bring Saturday afternoon, Armstrong says he’s impressed with what his team has been able to accomplish.
“Yeah, as far as the Chase spot, I think it’s impressive,” noted Armstrong. “Just where we started I thought we had a shot at it, but where we kind of fell off there in the beginning and then we’ve kind of reeled it back in here where I think we’re good enough that if we were in it, we could make a good run at it.
“But we just kind of – just missing a little bit there, so we’ve made huge strides – still have a lot to gain. We still need to work on our speed a little bit just overall and for qualifying – just having that speed run, top-10 consistently. We’re still missing that a little bit.”
While apprecaitive and thankful about his rookie season at JGL, Armstrong can’t forget about the opportunity he had last month at Iowa Speedway where he filled in at Joe Gibbs Racing for the ailing Matt Tifft.
The New Castle, Indiana native made the most of the opportunity qualifying third and finishing a career-best fifth in the No. 18 Winfield Toyota, earning coveted points towards the Chase.
And if a berth into the inaugural Chase isn’t a reason for Lane to throw a Hail Mary strategy for his driver to execute, the debut of a new sponsor is.
Announced earlier this week, Let’s Talk Food will back Armstrong in his sixth start at Chicagoland Speedway.
“This week (is) cool deal with Let’s Talk Food,” added Armstrong. “Great deal from WinField and Brandt (sponsor for Justin Allgaier) coming together to kind of raise awareness on how food is grown in our area and being a part of it from the agricultural side just a really cool deal, so going to enjoy that as much as we can. I have a really cool paint scheme with it and just going to go have some fun.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
