Cassill has weight lifted after run into Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The first Duel race on Thursday night personified how stressful Speedweeks and qualifying for the Daytona 500 can be.

Cedar Rapids native Landon Cassill was among a group of drivers who needed to race their way into the 57th Great American Race by virtue of a poor time trial last Sunday. And over the course of the first 150-mile qualifying race, Cassill and the rest of that group flirted with the 16th-place cutoff line; going from in the race to out repeatedly.

At halfway, Cassill was in. With 20 to go, he was out. With 15 to go, he was back in. With 12 to go, he was hung out to dry and out again. Then, after restarting 13th with five laps left, Cassill used a big-time push from Matt Kenseth to propel the former Hawkeye Downs Speedway regular to ninth at the finish and a spot in Sunday's Daytona 500.

'In terms of the last 10 laps of the race, at that point you're just in the zone,” Cassill said 'Sometimes you get to that place where you don't even feel your arms, your body, you're just making decisions.

'The one thing I knew I needed to do that I told myself before the race I needed to do and I told myself with five laps to go on that last restart I needed to do was I wanted to put myself in a position that the cars behind me, that I could control their decisions.”

Cassill got a laugh from the media center - and the man to his right, Jeff Gordon (who finished second) - when he elaborated on those decisions.

In the closing laps, it was clear Kenseth wanted to get around Cassill and move forward after the 2003 Cup champion pitted during the final caution period. Cassill was able to make his car wide enough in the top lane that Kenseth couldn't get around and was forced to push Cassill into the 500.

'He wanted to go around me. Fortunately I had the upper hand on him,” Cassill said. 'He's the one that pushed me up into the top 10 and kept me in the field. So, thank you, Matt, even though you didn't really intentionally do it. I helped you help me.”

When the laughter subsided, Gordon interjected and said, 'Teach me how to do that. I'd like to know how to control Matt Kenseth's decisions.”

Joking aside, qualifying for the sport's biggest race - and easily its biggest-paying race - is as much a relief for the drivers on the edge as it is a joy. Cassill said his team operates with 75 percent of its budget coming from prize money every race weekend. The $300,000 (at minimum) check for starting the race Sunday will pay for things purchased on faith months ago.

The lead-up to this year's Speedweeks has weighed on him more than any other he's been to, and said his wife Kaitlan had to help him through that increase in stress. She's an elementary school guidance counselor who majored in psychology, which helped her give him a perspective he couldn't find on his own.

'(My wife) made a really good point and told me, it's a lot harder to defend something you think is yours than it is to go after something,” Cassill said. 'That's why it's so hard to defend the Super Bowl, to defend multiple championships, and it's why underdog stories prevail in a lot of ways. Those people have nothing to lose. She really helped me with that after Sunday when we didn't qualify very well and put ourselves in a position where we might not have a provisional. It just helped me to remind myself that I need to be focused on going out and earning something and not defending something I think I have.”

Armed with that calm, he was able to execute when it mattered most on Thursday.

And in the process, he learned some things for Sunday that might help him write his own underdog story.

'It was really cool, I was able to clear my head today and the last couple days and really put together a plan I wanted to execute,” Cassill said. 'And it worked out really well. I was really happy with how the last five-lap restart went because I had a plan in my head of what I wanted to do. And I did it and it worked. It's something I can take to Sunday's race and hopefully will help me run up front.”

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com