SOUTH BOSTON, Va. — The two most prolific winners at South Boston Speedway this season, two-time NASCAR national champion and seven-time South Boston Speedway champion Peyton Sellers and the track’s current points leader Trevor Ward split wins in the twin 75-lap Sentara Health Late Model Stock Car races Saturday night at South Boston Speedway.
Sellers earned his fifth win of the season in the opening race, edging Trey Crews, driving a car out of the Stallings Racing stable by just .306 seconds.
Landon Pembelton, Blake Stallings and Jacob Borst rounded out the top five finishers. Ward finished 14th in the first race after being forced to the sidelines just past the halfway mark with a broken front suspension.
Sellers finished fifth after starting eighth in the second race due to an inverted start among the top finishers of the first race.
“It was a good night,” Sellers said of his win in the opener and fifth-place finish in the second race. “I qualified on the pole and won the first race. The fans got a show for sure with Landon and I racing each other and Trey racing us. It was a good night of racing.
“I just didn’t have quite enough tire left in the second race to make anything count,” he added.
Ward, who entered Saturday night’s twinbill in second place in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series national standings, started 14th in the 16-car field in the second race and quickly worked his way to the front of the field.
He worked his way up to third place by the 19th lap and began challenging Pembelton and Sellers who were immersed in a tense battle for the lead. By the 28th lap, he was within three car lengths of Pembelton and Sellers.
Ward worked his way past Sellers on the 34th lap, and after racing Pembelton side-by-side for 10 laps, moved into the lead on lap 47.
Once in front, Ward quickly pulled away from his challengers. He crossed the finish line 4.580 seconds ahead of Pembelton to earn his fourth win of the season. Crews had another good outing with a third-place finish. Stallings finished fourth and Sellers rounded out the top five finishers.
“Our mentality was just to get up to the top three and try to pull it out,” Ward explained. “We realized when we started the race that we were a little better than those guys. We ran only 40 laps the first race and had a little better tires, and we were able to capitalize on it.
It was hard to beat Pembelton, but we raced clean and I was able to inch by him, get some clean air, and set sail.”
Two drivers that had been winless this season in South Boston Speedway’s Budweiser Limited Sportsman Division scored their first wins of the season, splitting wins in the twin 30-lap Budweiser Limited Sportsman races.
Fourteen-year-old Lane Woods sped past Zach Peregoy with five laps to go and edged Peregoy by .282-second to win the first of the pair of 30-lap races.
Drew Dawson won the second race which finished under caution due to a multi-car mishap on the frontstretch on the final lap.
Kendall Milam took the lead from division points leader and pole winner B.J. Reaves of South Boston, Virginia with two laps to go and edged Reaves by .248-second to win the 25-lap Southside Disposal Pure Stock race.
The win was Milam’s first career win in the division.
Division points leader Jason DeCarlo and Landon Milam split wins in the two 15-lap Dollar General Hornets class.
