Landon Cassill to make 500th NASCAR career start

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – Before gearing up for Daytona this weekend, Landon Cassill made a pit stop in his hometown.

“It’s really cool to see people that I’ve known for decades. Even before I was a NASCAR driver, I was a Hawkeye Downs driver,” said Cassill.

He hosted ‘Lunch with Landon’ at Cassill Motors where he signed autographs and took photos with fans. He said he knows the community support is a big part of what has driven him this far.

“I owe this community and Cedar Rapids, Iowa a ton of gratitude over the years for their support. For always watching me,” said Cassill. “I’ll never forget a couple years ago, there was a map that showed the most popular diecast cars sold in every state and they were all Dale {Earnhardt} Jr. except for Iowa, which was mine.”

On Friday, Cassill will strap into the cockpit for his 499th career NASCAR start in the Xfinity Series race at Daytona.

“It’s emotional, it’s exciting – it’s a career at this point,” he laughed.

Nearly 24 hours later, he’ll be in the driver’s seat racing in the Coke Zero 400 which will mark his 500th career start across NASCAR’s top-three series.

“It’s a lot of races. How many times I’ve walked the grid, how many times I’ve been introduced at driver introductions, sat through a driver’s meeting and taken the green flag, 500 times is really surreal at this point,” he added.

After making his first NASCAR start back in 2007, Cassill says what keeps him going is his love for being behind the wheel.

“It’s something that I have so much equity built into this and it is continuing to return for me. It’s providing for my family and it’s giving me a platform. It’s helping me build a business and it’s all based off of something that as a kid, I just loved to do and that’s race cars,” said Cassill.

He added he also wants to check off more in his next 500 starts.

“I want to have victories in that win column. Bring some trophies back to Iowa.”