InnerView:

DALE ARMSTRONG

By Darr Hawthorne.

Editor's Note: Dale Armstrong was named as the #10 Greatest Driver by the National Hot Rod Association. We continue our InnerView, part 2.

DRO: What makes you laugh? You're a big 'Honeymooners' fan, I hear.

ARMSTRONG: Oh yeah, that's what me and Chris (Martin) used to joke about all the time, and Pete Duhart, you know, we always used to talk about the Honeymooners. I've got all the series, and Chris, he knows every one of them by heart - he knows all the sayings and everything, so, you know, we used to yap about all of them.

DRO: Anything on television now that makes you laugh?

ARMSTRONG: Yeah, Howard Stern - I get a kick out of him, in fact on the way to work this morning, Snake called me and he said, "Boy, you gotta watch. I called just to make sure you gotta watch Howard Stern tonight." Because I'll be at home and he'll call up and you always know it's him, right, it's about 8:15 and he's "Are you watching?" He watches it every night.

DRO: Do you have any hobbies?

ARMSTRONG: Oh yeah, yeah I gotta thing I spend quite a time with, I got a collection of muscle cars, like I got about 10 cars and got a nice, fully equipped shop -- you know air conditioning, TV and everything. I spend a lot of time just doing that, in fact I'm building a car now that's a pretty neat car. All these cars that I have are restored back to stock, I mean, it's just like they come off the showroom floor, but now I'm building a '58 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, do you remember - with the stainless roof and air suspension, I'm doing a full frame off restoration or I should say a modernization of it. I've got a '99 Northstar engine in it and it's gonna be all computer controlled and, still gonna have air suspension and, but it will have modern, you know, a nice leather interior. It'll be a nice, it'll be like a real '58 Caddy, but it will be like a new Cadillac, but it will be a nice driver. So that's what I'm doing right now. I've got it to the point where I'm starting to put it back together, the frame's back together, it's all powder coated and everything, everything's brand new. It'll be a nice car.

DRO: You gonna drive it or trailer it?

ARMSTRONG: I'll drive it; that's what it's for. I had another one before, two years or three years, I had one that was a real low mileage same year, '58 Brougham that I restored. Not a frame off, just made it, everything worked, its just like, like showroom and John Force saw it and he bought it; he had to have it, so he bought it and I started looking for another one. The first one I got that was my plan to modernize it, but it was too nice a car to do that, so I just restored it, but John has it now in his showroom. It's a real nice car, but this one is gonna be a driver. I spend a lot of time doing that. I get a lot of enjoyment out of my collector cars.

DRO: How far off do you see retirement?

ARMSTRONG: I don't know yet.

DRO: Can you ever really retire?

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