Auto racing is a family sport both literally and figuratively. Speedways and sanctioning bodies promote themselves as a place where parents and their children can come and watch an exciting event in a healthy atmosphere. The competing race teams themselves, are sometimes comprised of parents and their children looking for extra speed to outrun the competition. And they work together as a family.
Seventeen year old Dakoda Armstrong belongs to one such group. The Armstrong family owned team competes in the United States Auto Club midget and sprint car classes throughout the Midwest.
We spoke during The Night Before The 500, one of the most prestigious USAC midget events of the season. The annual fifty-lap feature takes place at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Claremont, IN a paved half-mile-plus oval located a short drive from the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And as its name implies, the Indy 500 was only one day away.
The Armstrong family gathered for the race on this hazy and humid evening. Two black cars were pitted together in the infield. One, driven by Dakoda, the other by his sixteen year old cousin Caleb. Crew and family members with matching black team uniforms were busy attending to both cars.
“We are kind of free getting in and then we were tight” Dakoda begins describing his night so far. “We are having a little bit of motor problems. My cousin is having bad motor problems. His car isn’t even running.”
Dakoda’s father Craig explained the troubles the team was confronting all evening as they readied for the feature. “This motor that we are running is a Hemi. Gary Stanton built it and we are the only ones running them and there been a little ‘getting them developed.’ The last five races we were a top three car.
“My nephew (Caleb) got a new wiring harness on and the wires got cut going through the dash. That’s what the problem wound up being with it. We put grommets around everything but pulling motors at the last minute and putting them in this week, probably guys overlooked it. And for some reason on Dakoda’s car we ran good but we had a battery issue a while ago and we don’t know why. It’s showing charge and… we don’t know.
“We programmed the boxes before we came out tonight and they said they found a glitch in the system on the coil pack. I’m hoping that when they reprogrammed it they didn’t draw the voltage down enough and do something to it. We start twenty-fourth. A year ago a guy started twenty-fourth here and drove to third. It’s a possibility. We’ll see. Let’s hope it runs” Craig finished with an optimistic grin.
As driver introductions neared Dakoda spoke of his racing beginnings. “My dad never really raced anything. He raced motocross for about three years when he was younger and when we were young we saw all the trophies and he never wanted to put us on a motorcycle.
“We would always ask questions about what they were and he would tell us stories. He knew a friend that had a go-cart and he said ‘bring him down here’ and I won the very first race we were in, so I was hooked from then on out. He just got us (our own) go-cart, which I’m not sure is too much safer (than motorcycles), but at least it was four wheels instead of two. But that’s how I got started. I’ve been racing since I was about five. Here I am now. I’ve just been blessed to have parents that take me racing every week,” added Dakoda about his dad and his mom, Marti.
“I raced go-carts for two years and then I went to quarter midgets and raced those until I was about twelve. Then we ran some Kenyon midget stuff and won the championship my first year out. Then we started racing sprint cars for a while and started racing midgets last year. This is my second year in the midgets” the high school junior continued.
“We are pretty much just doing the whole midget program. We are not doing any (dirt) sprint car stuff. Just some pavement sprint car, but we want to run all the pavement races we can” Dakoda continued. “We are going to run a lot of stock car stuff instead of the dirt races so it is give and take there and race what we can.”
When asked how his career turned towards stock cars he responded “We got asked down to Hendrick’s shop from Dupont and got a tour and got to meet with Mr. Hendrick and he was talking about (Ken) Schrader owning some cars. Schrader ran one of our cars indoors once so we kind of knew each other.”
Armstrong described his two NASCAR East Series starts in Schrader’s machines “The first one (Greenville, SC), we qualified good but we were just too free and we finished twelfth. In the second one (Hudson, NC) we qualified seventh and was running fourth with six to go and going for third when the yellow came out and they do that green-white-checkered and line up double file. We got hit a little bit and almost spun and we finished seventh. Still wasn’t too bad.”
Armstrong is scheduled to get behind the wheel of an asphalt late model later this season. “I think we are going to run at that Watermelon Capital place and Anderson (IN) and then Hickory (NC). So I am looking forward to that. We are going testing sometime soon.
I am just trying to get some stock car experience in a bigger car.
“We are trying to look towards the stock car stuff. That is the direction we are heading now.” The Motor City Auto Transport sponsored driver also said; “We want to race in midgets right now because we can. It’s our stuff. I’m looking forward to running stock cars in the near future. That’s kind of the plan right now for me.
“I’d like to concentrate on racing for a year or two after high school. I would look to go to college if nothing was happening after that. When you’re young you kind of want to get your name out there. That’s where I am right now.”
As Dakoda went to cross the frontstretch stage for feature race introductions, father Craig spoke of his son, racing, and the family business. “He wants to make it (driving race cars) professional. Make it his career. I kid him about how he ‘don’t know anything but behind a steering wheel.’ I know that’s what he really wants to do. So we raced different types of cars throughout his career. Quarter midgets, bandoleros, micro 600. But I haven’t moved him on until he succeeded in winning championships. So everything we went and done he seemed to step up. I don’t think he cares if it (his career) is Indycars or stock cars.”
He observed Dakoda as a car owner. “I raced some pretty good guys in my car and the thing that I see different (in him) than any other driver that I had is when we seem to unload anywhere regardless of what he is driving he is getting up to speed. We go to tracks that we don’t even test. He’s usually on the board. It’s like tonight. We had a bad night but I really thought we’d be in the top three qualifying. You know he seems to adapt. Even in the big (stock) cars.
“The thing I see different than most guys who drove before is, as a car owner, is being smooth. Everybody kids about that. They say ‘man his hands don’t move on the steering wheel.’ I did that when he was still little. I would loosen up the racecars. Make them so free that he would have to keep from spinning out to catch the car. Two things you got to learn: be really smooth and feel the racecar through your butt. If you can feel it and you can drive a loose racecar through a corner you’ll be faster than anybody. I think a lot of times we’re faster because we do run the cars on the free side.
But Craig also views Dakoda with a father’s eye as well. “There are tracks I go to I say ‘why did I have to get a racecar?’ We went to Winchester (IN) last year and he was only sixteen and I said ‘look, we need two tenths for the front row. I don’t care if you pick up the two tenths today. We can come back in six months and pick it up. It’s Winchester. Drive it with respect.’ You know he went out and picked up three tenths and sat on the front row that day. I don’t care if we go back and ever run. There are certain tracks that I don’t really like, but he wants to do it and I really don’t want to hold him back so… I’ve tried to talk him out of it. I offered him. I bribed him. When it gets in your blood its hard to get out.”
Armstrong Farms is the family business that helps keep the USAC team going. “We got about 7500 acres of corn and soybean. We have a spray business that we run. We’ve got a seed business. But mainly our income is corn and soybeans. But we are pretty fortunate to have the help we have” alluding to their sponsors.
As a dad, Craig has an interest in Dakoda’s future whether it is on or off the track. “There was a time period he talked about going into engineering. We talked about it the other day. I said ‘do you want to take a short business class?’ We could use somebody for soil samples. We spend about $75,000 a year doing that. He could take a short course at Perdue and he knows enough (that) he could be doing that for us.
“Like he said the other day talking to Schrader ‘If this racing don’t work out are you pretty good with golf clubs?’ Dakoda says ‘I play a little bit of golf but I am hoping the racing deal works out.’ I know Kenny likes him. He calls a lot. I talk to him about every other day. I’m hoping he wants to take some kind of schooling.
The elder Armstrong concluded with optimism regarding the late model ride. “I called Schrader and asked ‘what do you think of going late model?’ He said ‘Any kind of big (stock car) racing is good.’ We’ll go ahead and do it just to get him (Dakoda) the experience. It’s still just a bigger car and we go to a lot of the tracks and guys are rookies. Well, they’re rookies but they have been running the bigger cars. He thinks they’re easier. He says ’everything reacts slower’ compared to these (midget) cars. Everything is faster and you are right on the edge. Just get him laps and see what happens.”
On this night, Dakoda was able to move from his starting position in the back to a seventh place finish. Craig, Marti, Dakoda, and younger brother Dalton are all looking forward to the possibility of a young driving career going forward as well.
