Rookie of the year Cassill has no guarantees in '09

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Through this decade, winners of what's now the Nationwide Series' Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award have thrived in the upper levels of NASCAR, and 2008 winner Landon Cassill hopes that trend continues.

Names such as Kevin Harvick, Greg Biffle, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and now David Ragan are well entrenched in the Sprint Cup Series for 2009. Only 2006 rookie of the year Danny O'Quinn Jr. has never had the opportunity to drive in a full Cup season.

Nationwide Series

2008 Rookie Standings

Driver	R	W	T5	T10	Pts*
L. Cassill	19	0	0	5	--
B. Clauson	21	0	1	2	-8
D. Franchitti	14	0	1	2	-33
C. Gale	13	0	1	3	-43
B. Keselowski^	11	0	0	0	-95

* Behind | ^ Brian Keselowski

But for 2009, and despite having the sport's most popular driver solidly in his corner, Cassill's in the precarious position of knowing he has a job, with Hendrick Motorsports, but he doesn't have a ride, due to lack of sponsorship.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. owns JR Motorsports, the team that fielded Cassill's cars, in a partnership with Hendrick Motorsports. Even that has gained the team little more than enough sponsorship to run Cassill's full-time Nationwide Series teammate, Brad Keselowski, in 2009.

"Well, I was proud of Landon," Earnhardt said of his rookie champion. "He did a good job for the most part of the year. He got the finishes he needed to win. He had some pretty good competition [with] Bryan [Clauson]. He [Cassill] got some really good finishes at parts of the year and showed he's got a lot of talent."

That may end up being the best thing Cassill has going for him after he became only the third driver to win the title while running a partial schedule, following O'Quinn and David Stremme, who won in 2003.

"I've had a lot of offers to drive Late Model cars, so I can do plenty of that [next season]," Cassill said Friday. "I'm lucky to be involved with Hendrick Motorsports and all the support they continue to offer me.

"As long as I'm driving a Chevrolet, I think they would support me if I had some opportunities there -- and I actually much prefer to be driving Chevrolets. But I'm still employed, and that's better than a lot of other people."

Cassill, 19, made 19 starts in a partial schedule in JR Motorsports' No. 5 Chevrolet and was the best finishing rookie in seven of them. He doesn't know when his next will come. (Continued)