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Hawkeye Downs to induct 5 racers into Hall of Fame
Landon Cassill, Ken Schrader, Jim Williams, Max Rogers and Bob Ballard will be honored before the start of racing Friday, July 25, 2025.
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CEDAR RAPIDS — Five individuals will be inducted into Hawkeye Downs Speedway’s Wall of Fame on Friday.
Landon Cassill, Ken Schrader, Jim Williams, Max Rogers and Bob Ballard will be honored before the start of racing.
Front gates open at 6 p.m. Opening ceremonies will start at 7 p.m. with hot laps and features to follow.
Landon Cassill
Cassill began his racing career driving quads and go-karts. He raced go-karts from 1998 to 2002, winning six national karting championships. Cassill has driven Modifieds, Legends and Late Models at Hawkeye Downs. In 2007, he made his debut in the NASCAR Busch series and was the 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year. His first NASCAR Cup Series start was at Michigan International Speedway in 2010. From 2007 through 2022, Cassill made more than 600 combined starts in NASCAR’s three top racing divisions.
Ken Schrader
Schrader’s racing career began in the Sportsman division at his local Missouri track. In 1971, he began driving sprint cars. He was USAC's Stock Car Division Rookie of the Year in 1980. Schrader made his first NASCAR Cup Series start in 1984 and raced the full NASCAR schedule until 2014. Today, Schrader races his Federated Auto Parts cars at various dirt tracks across the country. Throughout his career, he’s been a true ambassador for motorsports, making appearances and racing at Hawkeye Downs numerous times in the Modified and Late Model divisions to help promote the track.
Jim Williams
Williams started racing at Hawkeye Downs in 1974 in the Hobby Stock division. He raced until 2006, also competing in the Modifieds and Late Model classes. Williams won feature races at Hawkeye Downs on both the dirt and asphalt. He also was a car fabricator who built racing chassis and roll cages, and he helped build cars for many of the drivers already inducted in HD’s Wall of Fame.
Max Rogers
A Sprint Car owner, Rogers hosted many drivers in his car over the years, including Lloyd Beckman, Doug Wolfgang, Danny Lasoski, Rocky Hodges, Shane Carson, Randy Smith, Tommy Estes Jr., Jack Haudenshield, Ralph Blackett and Eddie Leavitt. His drivers won 61 feature races on 29 different racetracks in 13 different states. Nine of Rogers’s drivers are in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Knoxville Raceway Hall of Fame in 1995.
Bob Ballard
Ballard began racing in 1965, competing in the Hobby Stock division at Hawkeye Downs. He also drove Modifieds and Late Models. Ballard stopped driving in 1971. In 1972, he became a car owner. His drivers included Brian Gibson, Chris Horn and Curt Martin. In 2001, Ballard and Martin won the Hawkeye Downs Late Model season championship. Martin also drove Ballard’s car in ASA races.
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