Driver: Landon Cassill

Car: No. 88 Stanley Tools ARCA Chevrolet

Track: Talladega Superspeedway

Bio: JR Motorsports is best-known for its participation in—and recent domination of—the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The company was founded on Late Model racing, with an eye toward bringing drivers forward through the feeder series.

Landon Cassill, one of Rick Hendrick’s development drivers, was part of that transition, which led JRM to field an ARCA entry for the Iowa native. In 2008, Cassill made the first two ARCA Racing Series starts for JRM at Daytona and Talladega. The race at Talladega is the subject of this week’s Racecar Graveyard occupant.

Early in the ARCA RE/MAX 250 (Oct. 3, 2008), Cassill was running around mid-pack as the field thundered into Turn 1 at speed. Brian Scott, who later drove in the NXS and NASCAR Cup Series, was running seventh on the bottom when the right rear tire shredded. As often happens at Talladega, it was not a single-car incident. Scott’s car spun and hit another car on the way to the Turn 1 wall, touching off a huge crash.

Cassill did everything right to avoid it and still managed to get collected. He slowed down and dove to the lower groove, only to get hit from behind and carried to the infield grass. As the cars piled in, Cassill’s car got turned backward and received damage on all four corners. In all, some 15 cars were involved in one aspect or another.

Though Cassill’s day ended on the wrecker’s hook, another driver with JRM ties had a much better result. Justin Allgaier, currently the driver of JRM’s No. 7 Chevrolet in the NXS, was just behind Scott when the tire shredded and got some nose damage from a chunk of the debris. It knocked a hole in the grille and radiator, which resulted in a couple of pit stops for repairs. The then-22-year-old Allgaier would go on to win the race and the 2008 ARCA championship, overcoming a 105-point deficit in the final three races in his family-owned machine. That led directly to his signing to drive in the NASCAR Xfinity Series the following season for Penske Racing...and indirectly to his success with JRM several years later.

The Stanley Tools Chevrolet that Cassill drove was installed in the Graveyard at the end of its useful life, which was fairly soon after the event. As a team, JRM has entered six ARCA events (two for Cassill, one for Danica Patrick and three for Cole Custer). In those six starts, JRM drivers earned a victory and two top-five finishes (Custer earned all three in 2015), and four top-10 results. Cassill had finished seventh in the season-opening 2008 race at Daytona.