JUPITER FL (2-23-10) - Cunningham Motorsports, the team that spawned the career of Parker Kligerman, is on its way to Palm Beach Int'l Raceway where veteran Tom Hessert and rookie Dakoda Armstrong are set to take on the 2.034-mile, 11-turn road course. Both drivers tested at PBIR Monday after Daytona.......
Tom Hessert
Tom Hessert and the #77 Cunningham Motorsports team are looking to improve on their 15th place Daytona finish. The second race of the 2010 ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards season will take place Saturday, February 27, at the Palm Beach International Raceway. The 150 mile race, on the 2.034-mile track, is the first of two road courses that the series will run this season.
Hessert competed on the New Jersey Motorsports Park road course in both 2008 and 2009 with the ARCA series. He started in the 11th position both years, finishing 8th in 2009 and 19th in 2008. In addition to his experience in the stock cars, Tom has also competed on road courses in the Go Karts and Sports Cars series. Hoping that his past experience on the road courses will be beneficial, Hessert said, "I grew up around road courses and I am comfortable running on them. We had a really good test in Palm Beach and made gains all day. We have made some changes since we got back to the shop and we expect to have a fast race car. I am looking forward to a top-5 finish, hopefully we can contend for the win."
Hessert's crew chief, John Monsam, stated, "We had a very positive test. With each lap we made progress. As Tom improved his line and we made the car better, our lap times improved. The team has lots of enthusiasm and optimism going into this weekend. With the changes that we have made at the shop, we are looking for a good finish in Palm Beach."
Dakoda Armstrong
Dakoda Armstrong will get his first look at a road course race, in a stock car, when he and his #22 Cunningham Motorsports/Penske Driver Development team tackle the Tire Kingdom 150 presented by ModSpace.
During the afternoon session at the open test, Armstrong became more comfortable with the right and left turns of the road course. Armstrong stated, "Both the car and the driver improved in the afternoon session. I had to make this a quick learning curve. After the test, we found more speed at the shop and made some changes that should improve our race car. The last time I ran on a road course was in a go kart, when I was 6 or 7 years old. I don't remember too much about that, but I am looking forward to Palm Beach, where a lot is happening each lap."
After experiencing the highs and lows at Daytona (he started 4th and finished 33rd), Armstrong is hoping that his first experience on the road course February 27th will provide better results. As he prepared for Palm Beach at the shop, Crew chief Paul Andrews commented that, "He got better every time out in the test and became more consistent each lap. He went to a road course school to learn the techniques of driving on a road course and is applying them every lap. Every time Dakoda gets in the car, we see more great things. Our 1st goal will be staying on course and out of trouble in the early part of the race. We will see what we have for the 2nd half and a top 5 is not out of the question."
Follow all of the ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MA X and Menards action at Palm Beach by logging on to http://www.arcaracing.com/ for live timing and scoring.
