Hlas column: Landon Cassill's Sprint Cup boss in a hurry to see improvement

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- If you'd been in the kinds of wrecks Landon Cassill was in the last two times he was in a NASCAR race, you'd strongly consider using another form of transportation.

It sounds like Cassill better impress his boss the next three weeks, or he won't be keeping his weekend job driving in NASCAR Sprint Cup races.

The last two weekends in Charlotte, N.C., the 21-year-old from Cedar Rapids got noticed the way a race car-driver never wants to be noticed. That was via the kinds of accidents that leave people talking. And gasping.

Two weeks ago at the Sprint All-Star Showdown, Cassill's car blew its left rear tire on the third lap. The car slid up into traffic, and got T-boned by Derrike Cope with enough force to lift Cassill's car off the ground. Amazingly, neither driver was injured. The wreck was terrifying to watch.

"It was just as terrifying (to experience)," Cassill said Friday between practice runs at Kansas Speedway for Sunday's Sprint Cup STP 400. "I was sore for about a week after that."

Last Sunday night in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, Cassill was inching toward the top 25 after starting in 40th place. But on his 294th lap of the scheduled 400, Cassill and Regan Smith made contact, and Cassill slid across the infield grass. He got airborne enough to put the nose of the car into the grass and tear up the car. He ended in 35th place out of 43.

The accidents made for exciting television, but not for good feelings from his Phoenix Racing boss, construction company-owner James Finch of Panama City, Fla. Finch seldom travels to races that aren't close to his home, and rarely talks to the media. But he sounded like NASCAR's version of George Steinbrenner in an interview with his hometown newspaper, the Panama City News Herald.

Said Finch: “I told him, ‘Right now you've got a failing grade.' … I sat Landon down and told him, ‘It's real simple: If you don't have the results, you're coming out of the car.' … He's a real good guy, a nice guy. But you've got to come with the results. This month will tell if he stays or goes.”

Finch told the News Herald he will give Cassill through the Sprint Cup race at Michigan on June 19 to prove whether he keeps his ride. Veteran Bill Elliott ran the first four Cup races of the year for Finch, then stepped aside. Finch hired Cassill, who had been a start-and-park driver for Germain Racing, meaning he qualified the car in Sprint Cup races, then ran only a small portion of the race before pulling it off the track to save on expenses.

Cassill has made eight starts since replacing Elliott. His best finish is 24th, his average is 29th.

"Our goal right now, I think," Cassill said, "is to run about five spots better than we've been running. And from there, we'll be able to keep going. It's just a building process."

Cassill drove Finch's Nationwide Series car to a third-place finish at Daytona in February, warming the owner's heart. But this is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately sport. Finch has had a Cup car for most of the last 21 years, though usually not on a full-time basis like this year. He has had 23 different drivers over his 167 Cup starts. That's turnover. He has just 11 top-10 finishes and one win, a 2009 race at Talladega, Ala., with Brad Keselowski the driver.

It's tough for an independent to compete against multi-car corporations headed by the likes of Jack Roush, Rick Hendrick and Richard Childress. The biggest sponsors, the largest crews, the best equipment  -- money makes money.

"There are teams with 40, 50, 60 people per car in their shops," Cassill said. "We've got 15 people on our team. It's a real tight group."

Jim Utter previewed Sunday's race here for McClatchy Newspapers. He had a short comment for each driver entered, and offered this about Cassill: "There are few in the Cup series who do more with less."

Cassill has almost as many green-flag passes (559) as times he's been passed (590), and his team certainly isn't 50-50 with the rest of the field when it comes to resources. But the boss wants his driver to do a lot more, and quickly.

"I told him, ‘If you've not picked it up by Michigan, if we don't see improvement, we'll do something else.' " Finch told the News Herald.

If you've driven a race car at Daytona and the rest of the NASCAR circuit, you're used to pressure. Cassill seemed cool and confident Friday afternoon here, and that was before he posted the sixth-fastest lap (169.321 mph) of any of the 45 drivers on the Kansas track during the day's second practice session.

"Right now my goals are to stay in the car every week and keep building with this team," Cassill said. "There really are no guarantees in this sport right now with the way the economy is. Right now we've got to exceed expectations as much as possible and put as much (confidence) in my team that they know I can do it."

The thing is, the other 42 drivers are pretty good. The best, in fact.

 "You see a guy running 30th or 35th and think they suck, they don't," said Cassill. "When you see a golfer finish 70th at the Masters, you still wouldn't want to tee it up with him on Monday.

"It's very hard to finish 25th in a Cup race. It's just extremely competitive."

Today, Cassill will try to qualify in the top half of the field. Sunday, he'll try to finish on the lead lap and in the top 25. Those would be not-so-little victories for a young driver who wants to keep breathing rarefied air.