Short Track Weekly: Peyton Sellers Talks Grassroots Racing, CARS Tour Future

Peyton Sellers has long been one of the most fascinating names in short track racing.

He’s been a regional star for the better part of two decades, who also had a brief stint in NASCAR without adequate funding. A driver who has dominated the Late Model Stock car scene over the past decade, controlling weekly series at Dominion Raceway and South Boston Speedway while being a leading contender for the Virginia Triple Crown.

Sellers is one of the best drivers in the southeastern short track scene. Yet he’s never committed to the CARS Tour for a full season, or any touring series for that matter.

Why?

Frontstretch discussed that with Sellers at North Wilkesboro Speedway prior to a rare CARS Tour appearance for the veteran in the tour’s season finale. Sellers also discussed everything from the time and money commitments of short track racing to life outside of the cockpit. We also dove into a bit of his past, including his time as a car owner and short stint in NASCAR.

Chase Folsom, Frontstretch: You just capped off your seventh South Boston track championship, but you’re here with the CARS Tour at North Wilkesboro, a place we don’t normally see you. What brings you out here?

Peyton Sellers: Man, just trying to get better every week. Coming out here and racing with these guys definitely makes you better. We’re kind of wrapped up with some of our NASCAR stuff and the opportunity to come out and race on the weekend (presented itself). Beautiful weather here, good car count, very stiff competition for sure. Just an opportunity to kind of cap off our year and try to have a good run here at Wilkesboro.

Folsom: A lot of people wonder with guys like you especially, why you don’t commit to a touring series full-time? … What are your plans for the future? Do you have an idea of what you’d want to do with the CARS Tour, and maybe explain to people why you haven’t to this point?

Sellers: Well, they’ve got a really good thing going, probably the most competitive series going right now in the country for sure. It’s just a financial thing. Honestly we can go race 30-40 Late Model Stock races for what it takes to race a 15-race CARS Tour series. It’s just expensive. It’s a lot of travel, it’s hotel rooms, it’s commitment from my guys.

We’ve got guys who work full-time jobs and they can work all day Friday and they can go race with us, whether it be Dominion or South Boston or wherever on any given weekend. So when you have to load up and go to Florence and go to places, travel and take time off work it just makes it hard. (It’s a) very expensive series to run, but we enjoy racing with them, no doubt about it. The competition is there, the competitors are there. It’s just a financial thing.

We’ve got sponsors like Clarence’s Steakhouse and Danville Toyota that have been with us for a long time, Davenport Energy that’s been with us, and they’re with us because we race at South Boston and local stuff. When we go to Florence, they don’t sell any product so it’s just a nuts-and-bolts thing for us just being able to provide a service to our sponsors locally. Driving 30 miles down the road to go race at South Boston vs. driving four or five hours to go race at a track where you might not have sponsorship for that particular track.

Folsom: Some people may not know, but racing isn’t your full-time job as you’re actually a business owner as well. How do you balance your life in racing and your life outside of racing, and being successful in both fields?

Sellers: Just having a strong wife that supports us and sticks it out with us, and having my brother prepare the cars and my mom and dad work there in the business with us. They allow us to go race on the weekends covering for us at work, and I’ve got good employees and good people behind me that allow us to be able to do that.

But it’s tough. You’ve got to work 50-to-60 hours a week to prepare to go race on the weekend, so it’s just part of it. It’s part of life for us, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Folsom: On that same front, there’s people who are new to the grassroots world that may not understand that aspect of it, that you guys aren’t racing for your full-time job. If you were talking to a new fan today, how would you explain the difference between what you guys have to do here, and the NASCAR life?

Sellers: You know at this level you see what passion is all about. You see these racers out here. None of them are getting rich doing it at this level. It’s a melting pot. You’ve got guys that are trying to move up the ladder and prove themselves here at this level. You’ve got guys that have been up, come back and are comfortable racing here every week because they can afford to do it and generate sponsorship to be able to do it.

This is what true grassroots racing actually means, this is where you see how important it is, to see volunteer guys working on the cars throughout the week late at night. This is what it’s all about. You see guys here that stay here for a long time because they’re passionate about it.

You know, when you move up to the upper divisions you have a very short career, most everybody does. You’ve got a handful of guys who can make a 15-to-20-year career. But at the end of the day, this is where people settle in and race.

You can’t be rough. You can’t take a guy out because you’re going to probably race for him for the next four-or-five years in a row. This is what short track racing is all about.

Folsom: Many years ago you actually had your own stint in NASCAR. You ran some Nationwide Series (now Xfinity Series) races as it was at the time. When you look back on that, is there anything you wish you had done differently, and are you content with how that played out?

Sellers: Yeah. You know, we just played the hand we were dealt. I never got an opportunity to sit in very well-funded cars. We had a great opportunity to race a lot. I enjoyed doing every minute of it, the traveling part of it, but it’s all about the right opportunity at the right time. It’s so hard to make it at that next level, it’s not necessarily talent-based. It’s all (based on) sponsorship and partnership.

There’s so many of these guys out here that are talented enough to go race at the upper levels and just never had the stars line up at the right time at the right place. You’re not going to perform at a high level every single week in Late Model Stock racing, it’s a matter of putting together consistent years and being there in-and-out. And if you do get that shot at the next level, just having everything play out at the right time.

Folsom: There was once upon a time when as a team owner, you fielded cars for both Lee Pulliam and Phillip Morris. There was a story that came out this summer about their rivalry, what was it like for you as a team owner at that time, having both of those guys in your stable?

Sellers: It was good there for a little while. I wasn’t racing in the late models every weekend then and we were able to assist with them. … We had guys in the shop maintaining the cars and keeping them up. Just any time you get two bulls in the same stable, it usually doesn’t work out. There were several times when Lee’s frustration did run over and honestly he just crashed Phillip a few times. They made up, got through it and it worked out.

Lee was that young, eager driver trying to make it to the next level and Phillip was a seasoned veteran that would get on your last nerve, because every time you turn around and think you’ve got him beat he comes back knocking on the rear door. It was just racing at its best.

It’s just part of it. They get along now, but when that was going on they weren’t talking too much. The stories that I saw posted this summer really weren’t accurate as to what was going on at the time when it was being done.

Now looking back, they’re mutual with each other but at the time there was not a lot of lost feelings for each other, so that’s the way it goes. Lee was putting up big numbers, Phillip was putting up big numbers at the time and it’s hard to have two superstars running out of the same shop for us. It finally came to a boiling point there at South Boston and a couple different times when Lee had all he could take and retaliated.

That’s just racing, right? I tell everybody in racing, it’s one of those sports where it brings out the worst in people all the time. I hear people say ‘oh, well that brings out the best in people.”

That’s not racing. Racing brings out the worst in people. We put so much blood, sweat and tears in to it. We put (in) so many financial obligations and time away from our family to go out and race. When you have your car get torn up and you have things go south, it’s easy to get very emotional about it. But that’s also what makes it so good.

Folsom: What are your plans for 2025 if you have anything to share?

Sellers: We’re just going to keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing. I’m very fortunate. I’ve got a good group of guys behind me that support us, we’ve got good people all the way around us as far as partnerships and teammates, things like that. We’re going to come back to South Boston to race, we’re going to try to run a few CARS Tour races along the way, we’ll run for the Triple Crown again (and) see how it goes.