Cassill has smooth practice day at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The day after the Duels is traditionally a light day during Daytona Speedweeks, and Cedar Rapids native Landon Cassill's Front Row Motorsports team followed the trend Friday.

Cassill's No. 38 Ford only saw the track in the second of two practice sessions, and only went out for two single-car runs. Crew chief Donnie Wingo and the team wanted to shake down the race engine, tweak a few other things and get to final practice unscathed.

Mission accomplished, as Cassill was 16th in that second practice, with just final practice to go before Sunday's Daytona 500.

'A day like today, the speed chart is really the last thing you're thinking about — just because everybody's on different agendas and there's no pack,' Cassill said. 'Nobody's doing qualifying runs, obviously. But when you've got some guys out there by themselves and some guys in a pack of three, you're not really paying attention.

'I pulled out my last run and as I was getting up to speed, (Brian Scott) passed me, and I pulled behind him maybe 10 car lengths and started catching him pretty quickly. If he was tremendously stronger than I was, he would've kept driving away. That was kind of encouraging.'

Cassill said after Thursday night's Duel that Friday was going to be light, and crew chief Donnie Wingo backed up that thought-process after practice.

Only 31 cars practiced in the second of two practices Friday (the only one Cassill was in), and most were in the same mode as Cassill's team. Wingo said Friday was about making sure there were no major issues with the parts and pieces swapped out from the Duels in for the Daytona 500.

'The biggest thing today was to get the race motor in, make sure we don't have any leaks, no issues with the race motor, race gear, race transmission,' Wingo said. 'Tomorrow we'll make one or two runs, hopefully in a small pack and get ready to race.

'We need to get a little more speed out of the car, and we made a couple changes today that I think will make it a little better.'

There's still more work to do in Saturday's final practice, Wingo said.

The 2011 Daytona 500 winning crew chief said Cassill will run in a small pack in final practice to get a final read on ride heights and handling for when they're in a pack. Thursday's Can-Am Duel didn't allow for a good read on that, given Cassill ran single-file nearly the entire race.

Typically final practice would be a lot like Friday, but with many cars in backups and needing to shake things down as well, Cassill shouldn't have trouble getting what he needs done accomplished.

'We were hoping to get a little better judge of where we were (in the Duel), but we got shuffled out. Any other time we probably wouldn't run in a pack on Saturday,' Wingo said. 'We'll try to get with four or five cars, be toward the back of that pack. Biggest thing is to get the car up to speed enough to get the car to travel where it needs to be and make sure it goes over the bumps good, turns good and doesn't hit the splitter too hard.'

Cassill also used Friday get all the little things sharpened up. He practiced getting onto pit road, as well as took advantage of more time with the new digital dash that replaced the old analog gauges. With a myriad options to display, Cassill said he's trying to focus on one screen and adjust it to his liking.

He got to relax most of the day and prepare mentally, as much as physically — something he didn't get to do when he was running both the Cup and Xfinity Series races.

'I couldn't even tell you what's on page 2, 3 or 4 (of the digital dash). I'm focused on getting myself comfortable with the information that's on it and that I want to see,' Cassill said. 'I've changed something almost every run. I'm not changing a huge piece, just more moving readouts (and sizes) and kind of rearranging everything a tiny bit, to my comfort.

'It's nice (to have an easy day). I'd definitely say if I had to pick my dream Xfinity schedule, the superspeedways probably wouldn't be on it, but I can tell you sitting here watching Xfinity practice, I wish I was out there. But I'll take the afternoon off. I'll enjoy it.'

Final Sprint Cup Series practice for the Daytona 500 is 11:15 a.m. on Saturday.

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