“I wasn’t interested in going back to a midpack team. There were still start-and-park offers, but I decided to return home and semi-retire.”
Armstrong had no interest in continuing to post mediocre finishes and says he fell out of love with racing. As well, he had married his longtime girlfriend, Karlee, a relationship sparked by the unusual spelling of their names, and the couple’s first child was on the way. Fortunately, he had an escape route. The family farming operation was strong and he knew that this could provide him with a good career.
The story could have ended there, but Armstrong still had an itch to race. Maybe, just maybe he could rekindle his love affair with the sport by returning to his open-wheel roots. A funny thing happened when Armstrong was in racing purgatory, pavement short-track racing gained steam and piqued his interest.
Armstrong first competed in the famed Little 500 at Anderson Speedway when he was 15 years old. He was back on the grid at Anderson in 2020 and when the 500 Sprint Car Tour launched, Armstrong jumped in.
It was perfect. Not only was he back where it all started, but he enjoyed pavement racing most of all. Now, he had a chance to truly have it all. He could focus on family, his career and still ramp up his adrenaline.
“We had a car sitting in the shop,” he recalled. “It was an old Hurricane chassis. At our first race we were on the front row, but the car was just too free. It was fun for about two laps before all those guys in Beasts went around me.
“We tried one more time at Anderson Speedway and the same thing happened. So, I said if we are going to do this, we need to do it right, so Bob East put a nice Beast chassis together for us. We had to spend money to try and win again but we had the bug.”
Armstrong was runner-up to champion Kody Swanson in the 2022 500 Sprint Car Tour standings and that left him hungry for more. In time, he returned to a midget and a USAC Silver Crown Series car.
He figures he can manage 22 to 26 events a year and still meet his other obligations. Now, he wonders how his parents managed to do it all. He now has three children, sons Asher and Holt, and daughter Blair.
The current season has been a bit disappointing, but not enough to make him want to walk away.
“Last year, we did everything but win, but we were knocking on the door,” Armstrong said. “We have taken a step back and that is a product of not racing every week like some of these guys that do it for a living.”
Frustrated? Maybe a bit, but he quickly adds, “This is the most fun I have had racing in a long time. It isn’t high pressure, and we get along with all the guys we race with. It so much fun to muscle around an 800-horsepower, 1,500-pound car.”
There is only a flickering interest in trying to get back to NASCAR. For a time, he couldn’t even watch. The record may not reflect it, but he believes he made the most of what he had.
“One thing I am proud of is that we ran 133 Xfinity Series races and only had five DNFs,” he noted. “I think I have the NASCAR record for the lowest DNF percentage for a driver with over 100 starts.”
Today, he can sit back and appreciate what came his way.
“When you are in the middle of it you take it for granted because it is an uphill battle,” Armstrong explained. “You are fighting every week to stay there and be competitive. You don’t get to look back at it until you’re out of it. Then you realize you were able to do things that other drivers dream of. Now, I don’t take it for granted that I got to run all these historic tracks and had Richard Petty as an owner. He would fly us down to his ranch and we would all go snowmobiling. Now that’s cool stuff.”
Armstrong understands the importance of timing.
“When I joined ThorSport we just did not click right away and in the next few years they got a whole lot better,” he said. “I think when I went there, Matt (Crafton) had only won two races and Johnny (Sauter) had just won his first race. When they switched to Toyota, I was already gone and they started winning a lot and won championships and became the powerhouse they are now.”
In retrospect, Armstrong wishes he had used his sponsor dollars a bit more judiciously. In the heat of the moment, he couldn’t resist the temptation to run a full schedule.
“I should have used that money to run 10 to 15 races with a good team,” he said. “Then you have a better shot to do well and that can lead to better rides in the future.”
Then he adds philosophically, “but everything happens for a reason and I was lucky to get to do what I got to do.”
He also still gets to race open-wheel cars, and that is a good gig, too.
This story appeared in the Oct 4, 2023, edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
