By Ashley Schindler of The NASCAR Corner
I’ve recently had the privilege to meet a wonderful woman named Terri Cass, who is the owner of Team Cass Racing. For you who follow the K&N Pro Series West, you know who she is and what her team is about, but for those who don’t here’s a great opportunity to catch up on an awesome team! So sit back, relax, and enjoy an interview with Terri Cass.
How did Team Cass Racing start?
“Jim and I came from Sprint cars at Ascot years ago. We stopped racing due to the kids and our growing family. When my youngest son was in ninth grade Auto Shop, he came home and asked to build a drag. I told him if we would build anything, it would be a stock car, end of discussion. So we built a Super Stock and started racing weekly at Irwindale Speedway. We spent two years in Super Stock. Our first driver was Kenny White, then Johnny White. We then went into Late Models with Johnny as our driver. With him, we broke the track record in qualifying. Then we moved to Super Lates for one year, and from there we moved to Camping World, which is now the K&N Pro Series. In this series, we have had three drivers: Chris Johnson (whom I adore), Auggie Vidovich (who won the July 4th race at Irwindale in 2010) and now we have Jason Fensler. No more driver changes for us, we have found the equation that works.”
How long have you owned the team?
“We have been in stock cars for eight to ten years now with plenty of ups and downs.”
How does it feel to be a woman in the world of NASCAR?
“Men look at me like I don’t know anything, then we start talking about the cars and blow their minds with knowledge.”
Does the K&N Pro Series West do a lot of travelling?
“Yes, we travel the western United States, so we go to Iowa, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Montana and Northern and Southern California.”
Do you feel a small team has more of an advantage because you only have to work on two cars?
“We have two cars and each track requires different setups, so one car is always being worked on.”
Does religion play an important role to you?
“Religion does! I listen to my Christian music on my iPod before each race for meditation and pray my rump off; first for the safety of the drivers and then for a good finish.”
How does it feel to have won last week?
“Winning? Awesome! The best feeling ever that we as a team have accomplished a goal together and have had fun doing it. Jason raced one heck of a race, and we are very pleased with him over all. His personality, driving ability, fan interaction (which is very important) and his willingness to do what we ask of him with the media (which he is not used to, but he does). When Jason went three wide on the track in Roseville, I thought I was going to have a heart attack! He did great, and put on a show for the fans!“
Terri is a very appreciative woman, and would like to say a special thanks to her team with all of their hard work, Rene’a Bracken for all of the media exposure, Roger Bracken for being the best crew chief ever, their sponsors (Pick N Pull, MtFX Graphics and Simple Green), all of the fans for their support and most importantly, the military. “I have two sons, both serving our country (one in the Navy helping in Japan) and the other in the Army, fresh home from Afghanistan. I would like to thank our troops and their families as I know the sacrifices made for freedom and safety. My nephew is in the National Guard and my daughter’s boyfriend is in the Air Force.”
Thank you, Terri, for taking the time out Friday morning to answer these questions for me. I know I appreciate it and the readers appreciate it! If you want to learn more about Team Cass Racing, friend them on click here or check out their website www.teamcassracing.com.
All photos are courtesy of Team Cass Racing.
To follow Jason Fensler’s progress please visit his driver page at www.racing-reference.info.
Our thanks to Ashley Schindler who generously allowed us to reprint her excellent article and interview here on NorCal Car Culture. Hopefully there will be more to follow.
Ashley Schindler is a student and serious NASCAR fan from New York, studying journalism and public relations. She hopes to someday be a PR representative for a NASCAR team or a race reporter. She has a great website called The NASCAR Corner where she shares her interesting take on the world of racing. Ashley known as nascarchick_3 on Twitter, has over 650 followers. Her tweets are sometimes informative but always entertaining. I think she is well on her way to becoming an established NASCAR journalist.
