It's kind of been exciting because my favorite driver at hawkeye downs, since I was little, was Landon Cassill. Back then he was just a boy with a big dream, but this dream has turned into reality for him. He apparently started racing when he was just 3 years old, just go karts obviously, but it was still racing. He raced dirt bikes, and other cart races up in Newton, Iowa as early as age 10. When I first started liking him was when I saw him drive at hawkeye downs. I remember going to the races there every weekend, when he would race midget cars. I would always look up to him because he was a younger kid, just a few years older than me. The first time I watched him race I was probably just 7 years old. He was the KCRG number 9 car, and he eventually moved up and raced in a class called Late Models. Cassill was a great driver, with mostly clean passes and good intentions. I remember crying whenever somebody would spin him out or if he was out of the race for some reason. He worked his way up to the ASA series and did all this while he was going to high school. Cassill went to Jefferson, (Boooo!) and back then he was a pretty normal kid. I remember hearing that he broke the record for youngest winner in the ASA series and I was so happy. He even made me at one point want to be a race car driver when I grew up.
Landon went to a capitol of race car driving, Charlotte North Carolina to show off his driving talent. He participated in the 2006 GM Racing Development competition. This landed him a deal to be a test driver for Hendrick Motorsports. For the past 5 years, this is what he has been doing. In 2008 he started racing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series under the race team JR motorsports (founded by Dale Earnhardt Jr.). He was the number 5 Chevrolet, and this is when I started following him again. In his first year of racing Nationwide cars he ran a limited schedule, only 19 races, and still won rookie of the year! That is a big accomplishment considering only 2 other drivers in history have won that honor when they weren't racing full time. Out of his 19 starts, he put together five top-10 finishes.
Even since then, Cassill has grown as a racer a lot. In 2010 he officially made his NASCAR Sprint Cup debut. At 21 years old he started racing full time for Phoenix racing. He went from just testing cars for Hendrick Motorsports, to driving the number 51 Cheverolet. The top finish of his career was 12th at the beginning of this year at the Michigan race track. As a young driver he has to prove himself, especially now as he looks for his sponsors. His main goal is just for his team to have faith in him, and to learn from every experience he has.
“I want to keep showing improvement to a point that my team has enough faith in me that I can do this and I can be in the car every week."
“We expect it to be tough, and sometimes we have some good weeks and sometimes we have bad weeks. And you kind of see what makes you run good then you kind of see what you did that helped out and try to repeat it and when you run bad you try not to do it again.”
Cassill knows how hard Sprint Cups rides are to come by, and he is very grateful for all his chances. It was amazing that he grew up in Cedar Rapids, and that I used to go watch him race late models every single week. My family always said he had great potential, and the fact that he made his dream come true shows he has a lot of talent and a lot of heart.
In the end, when we think of famous people that grew up in Cedar Rapids, names that come up are Ashton Kutcher, Kurt Warner, Grant Wood, and Zach Johnson. You don't often think about Landon Cassill as being somebody who is super famous yet. Most people don't even know he started his career here. I think this 22 year old kid still has a lot of potential to make an even bigger name for himself over his years.
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