Dakoda Armstrong Manages Top-20 Finish at Charlotte

The traditional NASCAR Memorial Day weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway is always special for many XFINITY Series drivers and crew members.  With many crew member’s family and friends in attendance, Dakoda Armstrong dealt with various obstacles but was able to pilot his No. 28 WinField United Toyota to a 20th place finish in the running of the Hisense 300 at the Concord, North Carolina track.
 
“That was a long day out there today,” said Armstrong.  “We would have liked a better finish for sure but with everything we dealt with today it was a decent finish.  Due to not making it through inspection in time, we didn’t get to qualify and had to start from the rear.  Then we lost our clutch about halfway through the race and that presented a few challenges.  My team worked hard all day and we picked up spots on pit road all day.  The last restart was a good one for me and I was able to pick up some valuable spots at the end of the race.”
 
The No. 28 WinField United Toyota would have some issues during pre-qualifying inspection resulting in the car not making it through in time to make a qualifying attempt.  This would force Dakoda to start shotgun from the field for the 200-lap event.  Once the green flag flew, Armstrong would take his time and get a handle on his No. 28 WinField United Toyota.   While he reported that he was just lacking some grip, the New Castle, Indiana native would sit in the 29th position at the end of the first stage.
 
The second stage would find Armstrong continue to deal with losing grip and sit in the 27th spot at the end of the stage.  As his JGL Racing crew made various adjustments to his No. 28 machine, Armstrong would manage around various on track incidents in the second half of the race.  A clutch failure would also presents some late race issues but in the end Dakoda would make a late surge to come home with his eighth top-20 finish of the season.
 
“I want to thank the guys on the JGL Racing team and the pit crew for all of their hard work today,” added Dakoda.  “We picked up valuable positions on the field all day coming off pit lane.  We had a better car than our finish indicates as everyone stayed focus and we were able to salvage something decent.  This week kicked off 20 straight weeks of racing so we look forward to building on today and putting together a string of strong runs.”
The 20th-place finish dropped Armstrong to 12th in the NASCAR XFINITY Series overall driver standings – 29 points behind 10th place.
 
Armstrong and his JGL Racing team will next head to Dover International Speedway for the running of the OneMain Financial 200.  The 11th race of the NASCAR XFINITY Series season will be Saturday June 3rd and can be seen LIVE on FOX Sports1 at 1:00 pm ET.  It can also be heard on Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM Channel 90.

JGL Racing PR