DARLINGTON, SC (September 4, 2016) - With NASCAR entering the popular Labor Day weekend Throwback event at Darlington Raceway, Dakoda Armstrong and his JGL Racing team rolled out their tribute to legendary driver Davey Allison. Dakoda would steer his No. 28 Davey Allison Tribute Toyota to an 18th place finish in the running of the VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200 at the track known as "Too Tough To Tame".
"That was like racing on dirt out there today," said Armstrong. "We lost grip so quickly into a run and then our No. 28 Toyota would just become snappy loose on me. We were pretty good there on a long run early in the race and were able to gain some ground on everyone but later in the race it just seemed to fall off for us."
With Tropical Storm Hermine wreaking havoc on the weekend schedule, Dakoda would start the 147 lap event from the 18th position as the cancellation of qualifying would set the field by the current owner's points. An early caution on lap 21 would allow Armstrong to come down pit road to the attention of his JGL Racing crew for some adjustments. Back to green flag racing the No. 28 Davey Allison Tribute Toyota would come to life on the longer run and Dakoda would pick up valuable track position.
Unfortunately, the second half of the event would find Armstrong battle the grip issue and struggle to gain valuable track position. A long green flag run would find the No. 28 Toyota losing a lap to the leaders and narrowly miss out on the Lucky Dog award with a caution on lap 102. Dakoda would be forced to battle for a few spots in the field in the closing laps and in doing so would come home with his 14th top-20 finish of the 2016 season.
"That may have been the least amount of grip I have ever had at a racetrack," added Dakoda. "Darlington is so tough and the sand on the track makes it even tougher. While it wasn't a horrible finish for us today - with the points being close for a spot in The Chase we needed to come home with something better than that. All of us will stay focused as we head to Richmond next week and work on improving on this week's finish."
The 18th-place finish would keep Armstrong in the 13th position in the overall NASCAR XFINITY Series drivers' standings - only 18 points of the top-12.
The NASCAR XFINITY Series will next head to Richmond International Raceway for the running of the Virginia 529 College Savings 250. The 25th race of the NASCAR XFINITY Series season will be Friday September 9th and can be seen LIVE on NBC Sports Network at 7:00 pm ET. It can also be heard on Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM Channel 90.