Landon Cassill of Cedar Rapids can't rest on his Daytona laurels

After a terrific performance at Daytona International Speedway, lots of positive attention came Landon Cassill's way.

But though he has a ride on NASCAR's Sprint Cup series secured for this weekend in Phoenix, the 21-year-old Cedar Rapids native is still fighting to establish himself in the sport as far more than a fill-in driver.

Cassill certainly had a resume-enhancing weekend at Daytona, qualifying on the outside front row Friday for the NASCAR Nationwide Series race. He topped that with a third-place run, and he was as big a reason as any that Tony Stewart won the race.

“We had a restart with nine laps to go,” Cassill said by phone this week. “Stewart was lined up behind me. He said he saw the way I was drafting, and he hooked up with me on the restart and we drove right to the front.”

Stewart nipped Clint Bowyer by .007 of a second. Cassill edged Dale Earnhardt Jr., for third.

“We knew if we hooked up with him, we could get through some of the cars in front of us,'' Stewart said. “I wasn't sure we could get all the way to the front. Landon did a good job of making some good moves to get through traffic.''

Though Cassill was the Nationwide Series' Rookie of the Year in 2008 and it was his 33rd career Nationwide start, it was his first at Daytona in a NASCAR race. It turned out to be his career-best finish.

Factor in the two-car drafting that was a new wrinkle at the repaved track, and here's how Cassill put it:

“I've been racing all my life, and I'd never done anything like that. It was extremely difficult to learn and tough to manage. It was like being in football all your life and making it to the Super Bowl, and then the Super Bowl is rugby.”

Until the next Nationwide race (in Phoenix Saturday night) is over, Cassill is that series' points leader. That's because Stewart and Bowyer are Sprint Cup drivers, and a new NASCAR rule only lets drivers compete for points in one series.

However, Cassill isn't a Nationwide driver at all right now, so his name will tumble down the points leaders list. His ride for the moment is in a Sprint Cup car with Germain Racing. His goal this weekend is simple.

“Qualify Saturday and make Sunday's race,” Cassill said. “Then the team can generate enough funds to pay the bills and kind of move on to the next week. Hopefully, we do that enough times and we'll have enough money to pour into a full effort.”

It's called start-and-park. Cassill did it last year on the Sprint Cup circuit. He said he got a ride in last week's Nationwide Series event as “a gift” from James Finch's Phoenix Racing for the start-and-park driving Cassill did for Finch in five times last year at Sprint Cup races.

Start-and-park is this: You try to qualify the car for the race in time trials so you can run a small portion of the race before pulling the car off the track for the day to minimize the costs of equipment.

Some race teams without sponsors do start-and-parks to try to succeed financially. Last year, Cassill made 16 Sprint Car starts, but was only allowed to race to the end once. He completed just 32.5 percent of the laps in his races.

Cassill qualified 20th at the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis, led the 17th lap, but pulled the car off on Lap 53 and settled for 39th place in the 43-car field.

“It's a tough thing to do, obviously,” Cassill said. “But I'm trying to build a reputation. I'm hoping people will say ‘Wow, look at this kid qualifying for these NASCAR races with equipment that shouldn't even be out there.'

“If I go and qualify in the top 20 at Phoenix, around NASCAR it will be an unbelievable accomplishment. It's just not as glamorous as finishing in the top three in a Nationwide race at Daytona.”

While Cassill is still a test driver for Hendrick Motorsports, and has been since he was 17, he hasn't raced for the elite enterprise. It has a full roster of established star drivers.

Trevor Bayne, the 20-year-old who won Sunday's Daytona 500, doesn't have a full-time ride on the Sprint Cup series. He's running full-time on the Nationwide Series.

“I wish there was an easy answer,” Stewart told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper. “It's competitive. There's more guys wanting to do this than ever. The problem is the starting field size is the same as it's always been. Unless somebody quits or retires, it's hard to open up a seat for guys like that to advance.”

“You can have a short life in NASCAR if you don't take advantage of opportunities,” Cassill said. “It helps that I'm young. But something needs to break pretty soon for me.”