Dale Armstrong

[4] He began drag racing in NHRA's Northwest division in a Chevrolet Z-11 in the B/Factory Experimental class in a front-ended machine that had 11-second passes at 115 miles per hour (185 km/h).

[4] In January 1965, he moved to Southern California and began campaigning a Chevrolet II at local tracks since he could compete up to five nights per week.

[3] In 1969 he drove a Chevrolet Camaro in the Super Stock class and he followed it up with making passes in Funny Cars "Travelin' Javelin" and Tom Strum's Swapper.

[3] While competing in Foust's Alcoholic BB/Funny Car, he won the Pro Comp championship including wins in the U.S. Nationals and Worlds.

[3] He used Mike Kase's Dodge Omni at the 1981 World Finals to set a national record with a 5.891 second pass to break Bernstein's 5.90 mark.

Armstrong described the fiery 240 mph crash of his Dodge Challenger at Columbus, Ohio: "Yeah, that was kind of a bad one," he said.

[3] In late 1983, he took their new Ford Tempo-bodied Funny Car to a wind tunnel and found additional speed after some modifications.

[3] Bernstein had the first Funny Car 270 mile-per-hour pass at the U.S. Nationals (271.41 miles per hour (436.79 km/h) / 5.50 seconds) and lowered the record e.t.

[3] Bernstein tied another Don Prudhomme Funny Car record when he won his fourth straight championship in 1988.

[3] Armstrong continued as Bernstein's crew chief in Top Fuel, and the combination produced six wins in 1992 which tied a class record.

[3] In 1993, Wes Cerny developed a cylinder head / magneto combination that Armstrong tuned for the first 300 miles per hour run.

[3] Armstrong said: Being the crew chief on the first car to run 300 means more to me than any national event win or any Winston championship.

[2] Other innovations included equipping dragsters with data recorders, installing a two-stage lockup-style clutch, and a fuel delivery system with two sources.

[3] Some innovations later outlawed because they were too costly or too fast for the track included a three spark plug per cylinder magneto and a two-speed supercharger.

[1] He was named eleven times to Car Craft magazine's All-Star Drag Racing team;[7] he received their Ollie lifetime achievement award with Bernstein in 1997.