MADISON, Ill. — With two laps to go, Dakoda Armstrong was nearly resigned to the fact he was going to finish second. With one lap to go, he was just about resigned to the fact that he was going to run out of fuel.
Neither of these things came to fruition during Friday night’s Ranken Technical College USAC Silver Crown Showdown Presented by Welsch Heating & Cooling at World Wide Technology Raceway.
The third-starting Armstrong led the initial 41 circuits of the 60-lap, 75-mile main event before giving way to pole sitter Kody Swanson on lap 42. Swanson proceeded to lead the next 17 laps, and with two to go, held a comfortable three second lead. But that’s just when the unthinkable happened.
Swanson’s car became fully engulfed in a plume of white smoke that suddenly shot out from underneath the hood entering turn three. As Swanson slid to a stop, his chance at a golden opportunity to become a two-time winner at the 1.25-mile paved oval dissipated in the cloud that emanated from his ride.
With a green-white-checkered restart awaiting with two laps remaining, at one point, Armstrong felt his fuel tank running dry and took subsequent action that turned out to be a false alarm.
“We got double lucky because, on the last green-white-checkered, the car was completely stumbling,” Armstrong explained. “We’re just going so fast; I just didn’t want anyone to run me over. I literally stuck my hand out the window off turn two because I was on the floor and the thing was dead. But somehow, it just busted back to life and had just enough fuel to keep rolling.”
Grant’s car was also suffering the same fate during the final laps, and he was unable to get close enough to mount a bid for the win. When all was said and done, Armstrong was at the top of the scoring pylon, 0.720 seconds ahead of the field as a winner once again in his C & A Motorsports/Meristem Crop Performance – Armstrong Farms/Beast/Stanton Chevy.
After racking up four 10th-place finishes in four USAC Silver Crown starts during the 2023 campaign, Armstrong returned with a vengeance this year, especially of late, finishing first, second and first in his past three outings.
“It’s just a testament to how good (crew chief) Kevin (Besecker) gets these cars,” Armstrong praised. “Last year, we ran 10th every race. We just bought a car and raced it. Then he said, ‘I’m just going to scrap the whole thing and we’re going to do it how we do all our other stuff.’ We’ve been fast each and every week and I feel like we have a shot to win. I still feel like we’re a little behind (Kody) and those guys. He’s on another level, but we’re trying to make them sweat.”
After returning to the series following a 14-year hiatus a year ago, Armstrong had zeroed in on this race from the start.
“At the beginning of the year, this is one we circled,” Armstrong admitted of WWT Raceway. “I wanted to come back here, and I knew with all the experience I have in NASCAR Xfinity and Trucks, at this place, I have a little bit of an advantage. But these guys are good here too, so it’s tough.”
Armstrong was strong early and was able to thwart every advance made by Swanson throughout the first half of the race and beyond. But Swanson knew he wasn’t going to completely rid himself of the Jaws theme music that seemingly follows the competitors when Swanson is within range.
“I had a really good start there,” Armstrong recalled. “I knew, at the end, Kody was going to be so strong. I kind of decided about 20 laps in that I was going to get as much speed as I could. He slowly reeled me in, and I really didn’t have much in the car there at the end; it got so free. Those guys were so good on the long run. I thought we were going to come home second there.”
Two-thirds of the way through the race, Swanson turned the intensity up another notch. On the 41st lap, he ran his fastest lap of the race to that point. On the very next go around on lap 42, Swanson raced underneath Armstrong off turn two to take over up front.
But it turned out to be all for naught when Swanson fell by the wayside with two laps remaining, opening the proverbial door for Armstrong to strike and prevail over Justin Grant, Kaylee Bryson and C.J. Leary with Bobby Santos rounding out the top five.
“I’m really lucky that we were there,” said the opportune Armstrong. “The car was really good early, especially from last year with all the changes we made. We’ve been so much better each and every week. This thing was a rocket ship all night, especially down the straightaways. I’m glad we were able to capitalize.”
Grant’s runner-up result was his best USAC Silver Crown finish on a pavement track since winning at Indiana’s Winchester Speedway three years earlier in July of 2021.
On the GWC restart, Bryson hustled from fifth to third in a span of two laps and nearly came within a whisker of finishing second in her Sam Pierce/Sam Pierce Chevrolet – AP Driver Development – RE Technologies/Beast/Chevy. Her third place run was the best of her USAC Silver Crown career on pavement, topping her sixth-place finish at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway in 2023.
Santos bounced back from every obstacle thrown his way this evening. He came back from a broken U-joint in practice to qualify second. Then a failure to launch at the start of the race forced him to begin his quest from the 14th position. From there, Santos went to work, passing nine cars in all to finish fifth to pick up hard charger honors for the night.
Swanson’s Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying run of 30.239 seconds broke the series track record at WWT Raceway, and subsequently, set a speed record average of 148.814 mph in recording the fastest lap ever turned by a traditional USAC Silver Crown car in the 54-year history of the series.
USAC Silver Crown National Championship, World Wide Technology Raceway, Madison, Ill., Aug. 16, 2024
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Kody Swanson, 77, Doran/Binks-30.239 (Track Record); 2. Bobby Santos, 98, DJ-30.577; 3. C.J. Leary, 6, Klatt-30.704; 4. Dakoda Armstrong, 5, C & A-30.721; 5. Logan Seavey, 22, Rice/Abacus-30.865; 6. Kaylee Bryson, 26, Pierce-31.176; 7. Justin Grant, 91, Hemelgarn-31.270; 8. Nathan Byrd, 40, Legacy/Wilson-31.300; 9. Mario Clouser, 60, Legacy/Wilson-31.348; 10. Davey Hamilton Jr., 14, Hamilton-31.600; 11. Kyle Steffens, 08, Steffens-31.711; 12. Patrick Lawson, 2, Lawson-32.039; 13. Bryan Gossel, 06, Gossel-32.384; 14. Gregg Cory, 32, Williams/Cory-33.731; 15. Dave Berkheimer, 31, Berkheimer-36.731; 16. Nathan Moore, 48, Thomas/Moore-37.125.
FEATURE: (60 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Dakoda Armstrong (3), 2. Justin Grant (6), 3. Kaylee Bryson (5), 4. C.J. Leary (2), 5. Bobby Santos (14), 6. Mario Clouser (8), 7. Nathan Byrd (7), 8. Logan Seavey (4), 9. Kyle Steffens (10), 10. Bryan Gossel (12), 11. Patrick Lawson (11), 12. Kody Swanson (1), 13. Gregg Cory (13), 14. Davey Hamilton Jr. (9), 15. Nathan Moore (16), 16. Dave Berkheimer (15). 46:58.536