Why defending Martinsville winner Peyton Sellers is still racing for a clock

Peyton Sellers says he now has an idea of what it felt like to be Dale Earnhardt rolling into Daytona Speedweeks in 1999 a year after breaking the 20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration with his victory in the Great American Race.

It’s on a different scale, of course, but the two-time NASCAR Weekly Series National Champion had made winning the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville Speedway his top priority each offseason and found every way to lose it.

Then came last season, which didn’t start off particularly well with a 37th place qualifying run, but a spirited drive through both a heat race and the feature to finally claim his personal white whale, the revered Ridgeway Grandfather Clock.

“It was the world lifted off my shoulders,” Sellers told Short Track Scene on Thursday afternoon. “We had done everything had that track short of rolling the clock into the shop.”

He made the comparison to Earnhardt in 1999.

“But now, it’s been there, done that,” Sellers said. “The first time, it’s about winning it for everyone else, everyone who has stood behind you and winning a second one would be about winning it for myself.”

So, make no mistake, a second win in the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 would be just as important as the first, even if for different reasons. He feels the same way about his two national championships too.

In the efforts of going back-to-back, Sellers is bringing back the same chassis and engine that won the race last year, but it’s not over any kind of superstition.

“We’ve been racing this car all year,” Sellers said. “This is our championship car at Dominion this year. We’ve raced a lot this year to make sure we’re not out of practice. It’s had a motor refresh and it just came down to this car is the best out of our fleet and we’re bringing our best piece for a second year in a row.”

Also, this weekend marks the 14th consecutive weekend that Sellers will have raced between South Boston, Dominion and Martinsville. He says that is more important that the 16 straight years he has entered the annual race at the paperclip.

“I would like to think our notebook will mean something this weekend, maybe it will, maybe it won’t,” Sellers said. “But really, we have an ever-evolving setup with this car because the technology evolves in this sport so fast and we’re always working to make our cars better.

“We have a spindle package that works for us, week-in and week-out and sure we have some Martinsville specific things we put together for our package, I think racing every week and learning from those races is more important than practice on Friday.”

To wit, Sellers sometimes wishes there was less practice only because there is more to be lost than gained when considering that these sessions are during the day for a race that takes place at night.

“Then the track takes on so much rubber and the track changes so much that what you learn at 4 is going to be way different than what you learned at 1,” Sellers said.

Going back to the notion that Sellers had done everything at Martinsville but roll a clock into the Sellers Racing shop in Dansville, Virginia … he still hasn’t. The clock he won last year was delivered to Clarence’s Steak House, his longtime primary sponsor, down the road in Ridgeway just past the state line.

Now he’s racing for the clock to take back home.

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