SOUTH BOSTON, VA – Peyton Sellers was all smiles after a pair of top-five finishes at South Boston Speedway on Saturday night – mainly because he was competitive and still gets to race at his home track.
Sellers, 32, from Danville, Virginia, is a two-time track champion at South Boston Speedway. Once upon a time, he was a rising star in NASCAR racing after winning the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national championship in 2005. Sellers continues to race, while also building cars and maintaining cars for other racers at South Boston.
“It’s what I do for a living,” Sellers remarked. “I love to race, I’m a short track racer. South Boston’s home for me. It’s 30 minutes from home. It feels good to come around your hometown crowd and have them cheering week in and week out. I still have that competitive edge. There are days I get up out of bed wondering what we have to do to be better. At the end of the day, I’m a racer.”
On Saturday night, Sellers picked up two top-five finishes in South Boston Speedway’s twinbill – a fourth place finish in the first race and a second place finish in the second. He started at the rear of the field in the first race to collect passing points and led early in the second race until Josh Oakley drove past him for the win.
“We were running hard the first race to get up to fourth and then we had to run hard to stay out in front of those guys,” Sellers said after the race. “I didn’t know if Matt [Bowling] was coming. I didn’t know if Austin [Thaxton] was coming. They had been so dominant the first race. I used a little more car to try to stay in front of those guys and they never came.”
While it wasn’t a victory, the always well-mannered veteran was content and feels he is closing in on his first win of the 2016 season.
“Overall, it was a good night for us though. We’ve finished second a couple times, third a couple times. We’ve been knocking on that win but it just hasn’t played out yet.”
While Sellers’ teammate, Matt Bowling, expressed his frustrations about inverts after being involved in a crash in the first lap of the second race, Sellers feels inverts make the racing better for the fans.
“It’s just racing for you,” Sellers stated. “Two tires every week, inverts, that’s short track racing. That’s what the fans pay to see.”
While he has yet to win a race this year, the veteran racer has been a fan of the changes South Boston Speedway made during the offseason to enhance the racing for the fans and lower costs for the drivers.
“I’ll be honest with you, I’m here because of the fans,” Sellers explained. “This track has been here for a long time. It’s always been good racing. Two years ago, everybody was mad seeing Lee Pulliam win every race. He had a dominant car every race and was winning every race. Now, the two-tires have put everybody on an even playing field.”
Sellers said Josh Oakley’s win on Saturday night was evidence of the success of the competition package at South Boston Speedway.
“A guy like Josh Oakley who runs a limited schedule is not supposed to come in and win but look at him tonight. He’s come in leading laps. They’ve done what they needed to do to keep the competition in check.”
Sellers’ most recent Late Model Stock Car victory came on April 18, 2015 at Caraway Speedway. His most recent South Boston victory came in May 2014 – the same year he won his second track championship at the historic Virginia short track.
While Sellers has been without a win for over a year, he has no plans of slowing down and quitting any time soon.
