NASCAR: The feel-good story of Championship 4 weekend

Landon Cassill finished a race driving for Shepherd Racing Ventures in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, something that hadn’t happened for the team in over six years.

When Richard Childress Racing’s Tyler Reddick took the checkered flag to not only win the Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway for the second consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series season but to win his second consecutive Xfinity Series championship, he did so slightly behind a lapped car.

That lapped car was the #89 Chevrolet for Shepherd Racing Ventures, and it was being driven by Landon Cassill.

Cassill has driven the #89 Chevrolet on a part-time basis since last year when he drove it in the season finale at the same venue, the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Homestead-Miami Speedway oval in Homestead, Florida.

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His start in Saturday afternoon’s season finale, the Ford EcoBoost 300, was his 10th start of the season behind the wheel of the #89 Chevrolet, and he drove it to a 15th place finish, one lap off the lead lap.

The #89 Chevrolet hadn’t finished a race in more than six years.

Morgan Shepherd, the owner of Shepherd Racing Ventures, was the last driver to finish a race behind the wheel of the #89 Chevrolet when he drove it to a 27th place finish at Dover International Speedway in October of 2013.

Since then, the 77-year-old Ferguson, North Carolina native has competed in 102 races, and he is the only driver other than Cassill to drive the #89 Chevrolet during this span. This span also included an additional 39 DNQs and a withdrawal for Shepherd.

Shepherd finished none of these 102 starts, and all 102 of his retirements from these races are classified as having taken place as a result of varying mechanical issues, although many of them stemmed from a simple lack of attempting to run the full distance in each race due to a lack of funding.

In fact, he only completed more than half of the laps in one of these 102 races, and that race was the rain-shortened race at Pocono Raceway in June of 2016. As noted last month, had this race not been a rain-shortened race, he would not have even come close to completing half of its laps.

But because of additional funding for this year’s season finale, Cassill was able to attempt the entire Ford EcoBoost 300, and he did not disappoint en route to ending such a disappointing and somewhat depressing drought for the Shepherd-owned operation.

So while Tyler Reddick was celebrating his second consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series championship, Shepherd Racing Ventures along with Morgan Shepherd and Landon Cassill had their own “championship” to celebrate for the first time in a long, long time to cap off the 2019 season.