Late Model Stock Car juggernauts Peyton Sellers and Landon Pembelton have had their run-ins this season.
And each have voiced their displeasure with the other – clearly.
Sellers rooted Pembelton out of the way on the final lap and won in their first Late Model race on May 16. Pembelton had raced Sellers hard for more than 30 laps, and had just taken the lead coming to the white flag.
In Victory Lane, Sellers said that Pembelton had run him up the track at least twice during the race.
Early in the June 27 Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200, Sellers was involved in a crash on lap 44 after contact from Pembelton. Pembelton drove to a third-place finish while Sellers, who had a badly damaged car and had been knocked out of contention, soldiered to a 17th-place finish.
“The night Landon got mad at me for moving him he had run me up the track twice and roughed me up pretty good,” Sellers explained. “I gave it back to him one time. He put us in a bad situation last weekend, knocking us out of the way and tearing our car up.”
Meanwhile, Trevor Ward finished second in the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200, one of the four second-place finishes he has posted in his last six starts. He has built a nine-point edge over Pembelton, and a 21-point edge over Sellers in the battle for the track’s Hitachi Energy Late Model Stock Car Division title.
So, how are things heading into the twin 75-lap Hitachi Energy Late Model Stock Car Division races that headline the Saturday, July 11 CAS NAPA Race Night event at South Boston Speedway?
According to Pembelton, it’s all good.
“We texted back and forth and voiced our opinions to each other,” Pembelton said. “I thought we ended on a good note and kind of agreed to disagree. We spoke and I feel like we’re on good terms now. I feel we cleared some things up we needed to clear up. I think everything is going to be good moving forward.”
As far as cleanly racing side-by-side with each the rest of the season, Sellers said “that’s up to him.”
“I’m here to win championships and win races. I don’t let stuff like this bog me down too much.”
“I expect everything will be fine going into the future,” Pembelton remarked when the question was put to him. “I’m sure we’re going to be battling for wins, and we’re going to be trading doors a little bit and moving each other out of the way. It’s just part of good short track racing.”
Sellers says he and his team will be focused on doing the best it can each race.
“I’ve just got to go out there and try to run well and be consistent the rest of the year,” Sellers explained. “We’ve won three races and had a good year. Honestly, our performance has been off. We know that. We’ve just struggled some. We had a couple of things happen here and there that kept us from being where we need to be.
“Trevor has had a really good run of good luck,” he added. “He hasn’t had any bad luck yet. Landon had a bad race the other week when he had the fire. We had a bad race this past week.”
Sellers remains optimistic about the rest of the 2026 season, his chances of adding more wins and keeping his championship hopes alive.
“With H.C. (his brother/crew chief H.C. Sellers) working on the car we’ve always got a chance,” continued Sellers. “Moving forward, we’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve got to keep finishing races, be optimistic, and be prepared. Realistically, I think right now that if we win the championship it’s going to be because Ward and Pembelton have had bad luck more so than us being dominant.”
Pembelton has three wins, a second-place finish and a third-place finish in his last six starts. He has a lot of confidence heading into Saturday’s twinbill, and is optimistic about his chances of winning the track championship.
“I can never say we’re going to win, but I have a lot of confidence we’re going to run well,” he noted. “We’ve been strong these past few races. I’ve got all the confidence in the world in my team that we will continue to strive to do our best. It’s going to be about making sure we stay on top of our game.”
Pembelton knows he has a big task at hand when it comes to overtaking Ward in the division title chase.
“It’s going to be tough,” he said. “Trevor’s been really strong every weekend he has been at the racetrack. He hasn’t won a bunch of races, but he’s been really good, really strong every race. I know we’ve got to beat Trevor, and we’ve got to run well to do it.”
Ward is simply looking ahead and not worrying about anything other than he and his Trevor Ward Motorsports team. They came up one spot short of a title last year, and are working to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“We’ve had seven second-place finishes at South Boston this year, and it feels like that’s where we need to be to contend for a championship,” said Ward. “I feel like as a driver, I’ve been letting my guys down by not being one spot better in those races, but that’s why it’s called ‘racing’.
“I have some really good guys who stay hungry through the bad and the good, and that’s all you can ask for. We’re having fun racing at one of the most competitive Late Model Stock Car tracks – South Boston Speedway.”
The Saturday, July 11 event schedule has registration and pit gates opening at 2 p.m., practice starting at 3:25 p.m., frontstretch grandstand gates opening at 3:30 p.m., backstretch and turn four trackside parking gates opening at 5:30 p.m., qualifying at 6 p.m., pre-race ceremonies starting at 6:45 p.m. and the first race of the night starting at 7 p.m.
