Long, frustrating day for Cassill and Gase

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Frustration was the word of the day at Daytona International Speedway if you were a NASCAR Xfinity Series driver from Cedar Rapids.

Scratch that. Frustration was the word of the day for all but about a handful of drivers in the Alert Today Florida 300 on Saturday, which was marred by two Big Ones and won by Ryan Reed. Both Landon Cassill and Joey Gase missed the two big wrecks, both had a laundry list of issues relegate them to 31st and 32nd finishes respectively.

Cassill's day started with getting collected in a wreck in group qualifying, forcing his JD Motorsports team to go to a backup car. He just barely made it out for the race, driving out of the garage right as the rest of the field was rolling off for pace laps.

'Yeah, it wasn't a very good day,” a very frustrated Cassill said right after the race. 'It all started in qualifying. We didn't have a backup car prepared, and we paid for it.”

The 25 year-old and his No. 01 team had problems in the race from the first pit stop on. He had driven from last place (40th) to around 20th in the first 30 or so laps, settling into a single-file group behind the lead pack that included Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chase Elliott and Elliott Sadler. He reported back positively over the radio during that run, but it wasn't going to last.

A long stop under green left Cassill out of the draft, and he fell a lap down and in a group of cars that weren't fast enough to make up any ground or stick with the lead pack when it went by.

After going a second lap down during the second cycle of pit stops, they tried some creative strategy to get a lap back when the first caution came out 81 laps in. The gamble of taking the wave around and hoping for a quick caution didn't work out, as he was forced to make a pit stop just before the first Big One that sent Regan Smith rolling down the front stretch and went back two laps down.

It was right after that red flag, still under caution, that a part came loose in his steering; sending him into the grass and requiring a tow truck to pull him back to the garage area for a repair. In the flurry of changes the team had to make after his primary car was destroyed in the qualifying wreck, the team didn't have time to double check each item on the usual checklist for preparing a car to race.

Not having the backup closer to race ready than they did meant more work in a two and half-hour window between the wreck and the race.

While his team was working on the car, Cassill tried to remain upbeat about the situation. But after the race, the long day left him at a loss for words.

'They left the bolts loose,” Cassill said. 'It was a part that is life or death.”

For Gase, the first 15 laps of the race were a boon, driving from 26th starting position into the top 15. But after getting hung out to dry, he too lost the draft.

Not long after falling out of the lead pack, he dropped a cylinder in his engine, taking vast amounts of power away from an already underpowered engine. They took the car behind the wall to do what they could, but he was forced to race the final 100 laps with seven cylinders.

'We were so down on power, the cars that were destroyed; we couldn't even keep up with them. It wasn't a DNF, I guess is the positive way of looking at it,” Gase said. 'It's extremely frustrating. The only thing I was hoping for was Big Ones, and we got two of them, but second one was too late and we were too many laps down for it to do anything for us.

'It sucks. It's terrible. But you just do what you can do and that's what we did.”

It's hard to find a silver lining if you're either Gase or Cassill - or Cassill's team, JD Motorsports, which wrecked two cars in the qualifying accident with the No. 01 and No. 0 of Harrison Rhodes, who failed to make the race. They then had a chance to win with Ross Chastain, only to get wrecked on the final lap.

But Cassill has to find a way to compartmentalize the events of Saturday before he runs 500 miles in the Great American Race on Sunday. He kept it simple when asked after the race how he'll do that.

'I've just got to get over it,” Cassill said.

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