Dakoda Armstrong is one of many NASCAR development drivers within the ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards. The 18-year-old racer is affiliated with Penske's development program and drives the No. 22 Cunningham Motorsports Dodge this season. He competed in both 2010 ARCA Racing Series events and sits 16th in points.
After seven short years of racing, Armstrong became the youngest driver to win a USAC championship at the age of 13, winning in his rookie season in the USAC Kenyon Midget Series. The 2004 champion finished runner-up the following year. The Midwestern racer then began to run sprint cars in addition to midgets. In 2006 and 2007, he acquired four wins and 12 top-3 finishes while racing sprints and midgets. In 2008, the 2004 USAC Champion made his first stock car start in the USAR Pro Cup Series at Myrtle Beach Speedway, where he earned the Rookie of the Race and Hard Charger awards. Following his strong start in stock cars, the Indiana native made his ARCA Racing Series debut at Toledo Speedway on May 17, 2009. He made six more starts during the 2009 season, finishing in the top 13 in five of his seven starts, with a sixth place finish in his second ARCA race. Armstrong also competed in four Camping World East Series races in 2009 for Ken Schrader Racing. In August 2009, Penske Racing announced that Armstrong joined the Penske Racing team's driver development initiative. Armstrong is following in the footsteps of two successful ARCA Racing Series racers, Justin Allgaier and Parker Klingerman.
Armstrong seems to always fill big shoes throughout his career. Over the course of his young career, Armstrong received exclusive racing honors including the Channel 6 WRTV "Papa Johns Star of the Week" award, an honor last received by seventeen year old Jeff Gordon. The New Castle, Ind., native was also included in the USAC 50 year Anniversary commemorative poster with legends Mario Andretti, A.J.Foyt, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon
Following the announcement of his partnership with Penske, Armstrong commented on running ARCA with Cunningham Motorsports and working with Penske Racing. "I am very excited to have the opportunity to compete in more ARCA races with Cunningham Motorsports, and I'm really looking forward to being part of the Penske Racing organization. I'm fortunate that the Penske Racing team has decided to expand its driver development platform, and I'm honored to be part of the program."
Recently, Armstrong commented on ARCA being the place to go for driver development, saying, "We chose the ARCA series because it is still a stock car. You are still running all of the different kinds of tracks: the superspeedways, mile-and-a-half tracks, dirt tracks, half-miles, and even road courses. For a learning experience in a stock car, there is no other series that you can run different places as much as you do there, so that is the biggest reason we chose ARCA."
Look for Armstrong to run the No. 22 Cunningham Dodge at select races throughout the season.
Stay tuned as we continue to highlight other development drivers in the series each week!
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