Making the driver: Landon Cassill
Welcome to a new weekly From the Marbles feature titled “Making the driver.” Throughout the course of the season we’re going to talk to drivers throughout racing and get to know a little bit more about their background and how they got to where they are now.
The format of the post can vary. Sometimes it’ll be a feature, other times it could be a straight question and answer session or maybe even a hybrid between the two. Our goal for this series is for you to know more about the drivers you watch on a weekly basis and hopefully learn a few things from their past along the way. First up is Landon Cassill, who is (crazily) entering his 10th year in NASCAR.
Driver: Landon Cassill
Birthday: July 7, 1989
Hometown: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
First NASCAR National Series race: July 21, 2007 at Gateway Motorsports Park. Finished 32nd.
Current ride: Driver of the No. 38 Ford for Front Row Racing.
Cassill started racing at Hawkeye Downs Speedway in Cedar Rapids, about a 10-minute drive from his house. He said his first racing memory was racing a go kart at Hawkeye Downs and trying to corner his kart around the barrels in the corners.
FTM: What’s your first racing memory?
Cassill: My first racing memory I’d say; I was 8 years old and I couldn’t get around that barrel without spinning out. And a guy that was helping us at the time … his name is Rick Bennett and he actually works in the industry.
He told me to treat the brake pedal like there was an egg under my foot. And to just press it, but not break the egg. And of course the first time I went through the corner with that in my mind I blew through the corner because I didn’t press the brake pedal hard enough because I didn’t want to break the egg.
FTM: Do you remember your first win?
LC: I really don’t remember my first win in a go kart. We raced so much, we raced a few nights a week but I don’t know if putting it in a way of a ‘ha ha moment’ of realizing that I’ve got the ability to do this is the right way to put it because when you’re 9, 10, 12 years old — it wasn’t a matter of me realizing I was better than everyone else, I think I thought I was better than everyone else whether I was or wasn’t.
I just thought I was the best driver and I thought that I had a blind confidence that i was destined to be a NASCAR driver. Not backed up by any facts, any evidence of any kind, more of just the idea that it’s what I wanted.
After driving go karts, Cassill drove late models as a teenager and became the youngest winner in the ASA Late Model Series before Erik Jones later broke his record.
FTM: When was the first time you saw a fan that wasn’t a friend or family member? What was your reaction?
LC: When I was racing at the weekly shows at Hawkeye Downs [a track 10 minutes away from Cassill’s family’s house in Cedar Rapids] — I would say by the time I was 13, 14, Hawkeye Downs had a pretty healthy weekly show — there were a lot of fans going out to the races, and so I would sign a lot of autographs and we would sell a lot of t-shirts. And so it was always cool to see recurring fans come back with my t-shirt on. Even to the point where there was probably a group of seven or eight girls from my school that all bought my shirts and they would go to the races on Friday night and cheer me on.
FTM: That’s got to be an ego boost.
LC: I know, I know it’s crazy [laughs]. I didn’t date any of them. But it was cool to have that kind of support.
There were a few times over the course of the school year where on a Friday afternoon instead of the girls wearing a football jersey they’re wearing my t-shirt because i’m racing on Friday.
Cassill was contacted by agent Jeff Dickerson (his agent today) as a teenager and tested for Bill Davis and Toyota and subsequently participated in the GM Development competition as a 16-year-old. Cassill, along with 15 other participants drove Xfinity Series cars in the competition at a short track in North Carolina. After a similar test in a dirt car, Cassill made the cut to eight and drove at Nashville Speedway. The tests were the first time he had ever driven a stock car.
He finished second in the GM competition — to someone named Joey Logano — and signed a developmental deal with Hendrick Motorsports. He served as the team’s research and development driver and made his Xfinity Series debut in 2007. At 18 years old he was a teammate to Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.
But while Cassill was testing their cars, he didn’t get to race much. As one of the first drivers in developmental programs that are so common today among big teams, Cassill was also a victim of poor economic timing. He came to NASCAR as a recession hit.
LC: We were so much more invested at the time in having test cars and getting laps in Cup cars and testing for Jimmie and working on all that stuff, that at the same time when the economy took a tank, there was really no sponsorship coming in to put me in a race car. And I was still busy enough in my full time job as a test driver that I guess we just really didn’t go after it. Almost with the mindset that ‘Oh, OK once everything settles out and the season’s over, they’ll have me in a full time ride and we’ll just do our deal.’ They had me working and everything was fine and dandy. I was driving cars but I just was never getting to race them.
As HMS moved sponsors around to ensure its top rides were funded, Cassill didn’t see the track in race conditions much as he was test driving for the 48 team. He raced 22 times in the Xfinity Series from 2007-10 for HMS and JR Motorsports.
FTM: What was the biggest challenge during that time?
LC: The biggest challenge around that time in that career was my path had changed and I had to find a new one. Because up until that point, my career path was being that driver that was to be developed under that umbrella of a powerhouse team with high corporate sponsorship. And I was sort of on that path with a part-time ride but when those deals fell apart in 2007 and 2008, that path changed and it took until 2010 maybe for me to realize that my path needed to change.
And I think the reason it might have taken 2009 and 2010 for me to realize that my path needed to change was just because I was on Hendrick’s payroll and I was still working for him. And I was still testing for him, I was still working for Jimmie Johnson and the 48 team, I was still getting championship rings for them when they won the championships, so I kind of didn’t realize my path needed to change until 2010 when it was like ‘Hey, there’s other young drivers coming up behind me and these guys are no longer investing — they’re not looking at me as young talent to be invested in anymore.
And so fortunately at the same time that’s when James Finch needed a driver for his Cup car and I was there.
Cassill ran one race in 2009 in the Xfinity Series. It was for Finch, who had a relationship with Rick Hendrick. Cassill said Hendrick called Finch and asked him to put Cassill in the car at Memphis. Cassill finished 10th. He made his Sprint Cup Series debut the next season, driving 16 races for Finch and two other teams. He completed less than 100 laps in 11 of those 16 races. His Cup career was off to an inauspicious start, but it had started.
LC: I think I was mentally telling myself that I had to make a living. It was time to be a professional race car driver that it was time to drive race cars in exchange for money. I had to decide, and this was more from the directive of my agent, Jeff Dickerson, where you reach a point where it’s hey, if you want to do this for a living this is what you have to do. You can move back to Iowa and sell used cars if you want, but if you want to be a professional race car driver, this is the opportunity in front of you and this is what you need to do.
In my mind, that’s when I transitioned into a real professional race car driver. I don’t feel like I was a professional race car driver until that happened.
In the six-plus years he’s been in the Cup Series, Cassill has driven for seven different owners. He’s transitioned from a driver who started races with the purpose of not finishing them to one who has 11 DNFs since 2014, and six of those have been from engine failures.
After racing for Circle Sport/Hillman Racing for the past three seasons, Cassill moved to Front Row’s No. 38 in 2016. The team now has an alliance with Roush Fenway Racing and it’s arguably the best opportunity of Cassill’s Cup career.
FTM: When you’re a kid, the end game was to be in NASCAR. Now that you’re here, what’s the end game now?
LC: To be here for another 15 years. I would say right now as simple and basic as this sounds, I want to win a race. I’ve come all this way, I’ve beaten a lot of odds, I’ve driven cars that people weren’t willing to drive. I’ve qualified cars into races that probably didn’t have any business being in the race. I’ve been a part of the growth of teams, I’ve been a part of a lot of stuff.
I’m in a good opportunity with Front Row now. And even though we may not at this moment in time have cars capable of winning, I want to get myself in a position to win a race. I just want to get to victory lane one time.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
