KANSAS CITY, KANSAS (October 17, 2016) - As the NASCAR Xfinity Series winds towards the end of the 2016 season, Dakoda Armstrong remains focused on finishing out the campaign in a strong way. The New Castle, Indiana native battled a loose handling No. 28 WinField Toyota on his way to a 20th place finish in the running of the Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway on Saturday.
"Our No. 28 WinField Toyota was really strong in qualifying and early in the race," said Armstrong. "But the longer we got into a run the handling just seemed to go away. We made gains on it throughout the race but the long runs really hurt our handling. All of us on this JGL Racing team had some high hopes coming into the race with the car being as good as it was in qualifying. - so really a disappointing day for us."
Armstrong would start the 200 lap event from the 16th position after his qualifying effort earlier in the day on Saturday. When the green flag dropped Armstrong would surge forward towards the top-10 before he began to relay to his crew that his No. 28 WinField Toyota was getting too loose. A caution on lap 51 would allow for a trip down pit road for some necessary adjustments by the JGL Racing crew. Reporting that his car seemed a little better on the short run, a flurry of mid race cautions allowed for a few more trips down pit road and more chances of improving the handling.
The second half of the event would see a long green flag run which again featured the loose condition worsening for Armstrong. Dakoda would manage all he could behind the wheel of the No. 28 WinField Toyota and safely bring it home to his 19th top-20 finish of the season.
"That just wasn't what any of us on this team were looking for today," added Dakoda. "We are all focused on finishing the season out strong and it seemed like we had a really good car during qualifying. This has been a long 16 week stretch for us and the upcoming two weeks off is much needed for everyone. We will then get focused on those last three races of the season."
The 20th-place finish keeps Armstrong in the 13th position in the overall NASCAR XFINITY Series drivers' standings.
The NASCAR XFINITY Series will have a two week break before returning to action at Texas Motor Speedway for the running of the O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge. The 31st race of the NASCAR XFINITY Series season will be Saturday November 5th and can be seen LIVE on NBC at 3:00 pm ET. It can also be heard on Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM Channel 90.
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