NASCAR: 10 drivers who deserve better rides in the Cup Series
By Asher Fair
#4 – Landon Cassill, Front Row Motorsports, No. 34 Ford
Landon Cassill, 28, has switched teams frequently throughout his NASCAR Cup Series career, which began back in 2010. However, he did not become a full-time driver until the following season.
In 2010, Cassill drove for Phoenix Racing, TRG Motorsports and Gunselman Motorsports before driving for Germain Racing and Phoenix Racing the following season in his first full season, although he still did miss four of the 36 races on the 2011 schedule.
After 2011, Cassill has never driven for more than one team in a season. However, he has still changed teams quite frequently. In 2012, he drove for BK Racing before making the transition to Circle Sport in 2013.
In 2014, Cassill drove for Hillman Racing and then continued with the team in 2015 after it was renamed to Hillman Smith Motorsports. In 2016, he started driving for Front Row Motorsports, which is the team he currently drives for. Because of this, he finally has some sort of stability within the Cup Series.
In most ways, Cassill’s statistics do not reflect those of a great driver. He has driven 247 career races and has just one top 10 finish. In fact, his win drought of 247 races is longer than all other active drivers’ win droughts.
However, he has driven for lots of underfunded teams, so it’s amazing that he has produced the small amount of solid results that he has. While he does only have on career top 10 finish, it was far better than a 10th place effort, which we’ll get into more below.
He also has four other finishes of either 11th or 12th place, so he’s been solid given the fact that he has never driven for a great team throughout his Cup Series career.
Now let’s get back to his lone top 10 finish. Not only was it better than a 10th place finish; in fact, it was even better than a 5th place effort. Cassill’s lone top 10 and top 5 finish came back in 2014 at Talladega, and he finished the race in 4th place as a Hillman Racing driver.
While that 4th place finish really is the only highlight of Cassill’s career, the fact that he even has that highlight given how many small teams he has driven for shows that he could benefit from being given a ride with a top-tier organization. He certainly deserves a shot, especially since that 4th place came when he was a Hillman Racing driver.