Landon Cassill will make a return to full-time competition with the JD Motorsports with Gary Keller stable, driving the No. 4 Blue-Emu Chevrolet Camaro in the season-opening NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, Feb. 13, at 5 p.m. ET on FS1.
Cassill is looking to break back into the spotlight after a limited campaign behind the wheel in 2020. Although Cassill started just six NASCAR Xfinity Series races last season, he really made his mark utilizing the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series to remain competitive.
“I’m so excited to open up the new season with Blue-Emu on my car,” Landon Cassill said. “I’ve had a great relationship with many sponsors through my career, but Blue-Emu is a company that has truly taken me in as their own and I can’t thank them enough. We’ve accomplished so much together in the digital world, it feels meant to be to take them to the real world. This is the car that my fanbase has been waiting for.”
The Iowa-native racing veteran was ever-present in iRacing’s ecosystem in 2020 — some days logging more than 12 hours behind the wheel from his home in North Carolina. Blue-Emu was with him every step of the way — from the paint scheme on his virtual race car to the branding on his super sleek Sim rig seen on streaming in-car cameras.
“Last year presented every brand with a unique marketing challenge, and we were no different,” shared Benjamin Blessing, EVP of Marketing at Blue-Emu. “When Landon presented this opportunity for Daytona to us, this brought our story full circle. What a way to connect both worlds of racing: digital and live.”
iRacing and NASCAR have hosted virtual races through the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series for more than a decade, so there was a natural progression to create the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series and bring fans competition virtually when real racing halted due to the global pandemic. Six of the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series broadcasts are ranked the highest-rated eSports TV programs of all time and averaged more than 1.1 million viewers each week.
