Auto racing is a family sport both literally and figuratively. Speedways and sanctioning bodies promote themselves as a place where parents and their children can come and watch an exciting event in a healthy atmosphere. The competing race teams themselves, are sometimes comprised of parents and their children looking for extra speed to outrun the competition. And they work together as a family.

Seventeen year old Dakoda Armstrong belongs to one such group. The Armstrong family owned team competes in the United States Auto Club midget and sprint car classes throughout the Midwest.

We spoke during The Night Before The 500, one of the most prestigious USAC midget events of the season. The annual fifty-lap feature takes place at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Claremont, Indiana a paved half-mile-plus oval located a short drive from the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And as its name implies, the Indy 500 was only one day away.

His nickname says it all: “Tiger Tom” Pistone was one of the racing’s fiercest competitors in its early years, and an innovator whose ideas about chassis setup changed the way race cars were built.  Fifty years later, he is still using his experience as a NASCAR pioneer, coaching and building cars for the sport’s next generation.       

Making his own start at Soldier Field in Chicago, IL, in the 1950’s, Pistone grew accustomed to a rough-and-tumble style of racing that made for non-stop action, but was not easy on the machinery.  

The dream of signing with a top NASCAR team is chased each and every weekend, by relentless young drivers chomping at the bit to make a career out of the sport they love. 

For 17-year-old Matt DiBenedetto, the dream became reality earlier this year when he joined Joe Gibbs Racing as a member of their driver development program.   

Originally from Grass Valley, California, where he raced 125cc Outlaw Karts on dirt, DiBenedetto and his family moved east after 2003 to pursue his racing career on the asphalt tracks of North Carolina.