In a near-mirror image of 2018’s race, Peyton Sellers found himself fighting for his life as he was forced to hold off a hard charge from one of the best Late Model competitors in Lee Pulliam, but he was able to withstand the assault to pick up his second consecutive victory in the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200.
Sellers was overjoyed to be in victory lane once again in front of a packed house at his home track, but he stated that the main factor that contributed to him being in front of Pulliam to begin with was luck.
“We did not have the best car here tonight,” Sellers said. “We didn’t even have the fifth or tenth-best car here tonight. The holes opened up at just the right time, and when we needed track position, we had it. That restart we had with 16 to go was the highest we had been all night long by five positions.”
Sellers obtained a solid starting position on the outside of Row 3, but he failed to make much progress in the opening laps of the 200-lap feature, as he could only climb to the fifth position.
While Sellers attempted to diagnose the issues with his car, Philip Morris and Josh Berry established themselves as the race favorites, with Morris leading during the early stages before Berry took the lead on Lap 73 and pulled away to secure the $1,000 halfway bonus.
Sellers found himself in the sixth position before the halfway break, but he improved to the fifth position when the Top 10 cars were inverted, but Sellers knew that he and his team would have to work hard on his car to have a shot at the victory during the second half of the race.
“We’re not use to racing with 31 cars,” Sellers said. “We normally race against 18-car fields, and with this many cars, so much rubber was put down and the track changed so much. We took a big swing at it during the break, and I felt like we had a better car, but we could just never get going.”
Sellers found himself in the middle of all the action during a chaotic second half that featured multiple accidents that eliminated several strong cars from the race, including Berry and Morris.
Sellers was able to keep his car in one piece through the chaos and found himself on the front row with Pulliam during the final restart. Sellers managed to hang with Pulliam on the high side and cleared him coming off Turn 4, leaving Pulliam to battle with Corey Heim and Trey Crews for second.
Pulliam managed to get away from both Heim and Crews and successfully ran down Sellers with just a handful of laps remaining. On the final lap, Pulliam finally got to Sellers’ back bumper and drove his car hard into Turn 3, but Sellers kept his foot in the gas and held on for the win.
Pulliam believed that he could have passed Sellers if he had a couple of more laps at his disposal, but he was disappointed by his second place finish and aimed some of his frustration towards the way Crews raced him after the last restart.
“We definitely had the best car,” Pulliam said. “It was probably the best racecar I’ve ever driven in my life. It was just hard racing there, and [Crews] wanted to win the race from third, but sometimes people need to understand when they have a third place car.”
Sellers and Pulliam have engaged in numerous intense battles over the course of their long careers, but even though Sellers was focused on what was in front of him during the closing stages, he knew that Pulliam was going to do everything possible to try and take the victory away from him.
“My dad spots for me, but with about five to go my brother took over and I don’t think he ever let of the mic,” Sellers said. “He told me [Pulliam] was coming hard and I knew the gap was closing every lap. He did all he could, but at the end of the race, we were where we needed to be.”
Mike Looney, who started on the outside of the front row, crossed the finish line in fourth, while Heim was able to bring home a Top 5 finish in one of Pulliam’s other Late Models.
Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200 Results:
- 26 Peyton Sellers
- 5 Lee Pulliam
- 9 Trey Crews
- 87 Mike Looney
- 78 Corey Heim
- 2 Brandon Pierce
- 12w Timothy Peters
- 8b Tyler Hughes
- 8 Thomas Scott
- 39 Mike Jones
- 90 Terry Carroll
- 18 Ty Gibbs -1
- 03 Brenden Queen -1
- 99 Layne Riggs OUT
- 24 Colin Garrett OUT
- 15 Ryan Millington OUT
- 88 Josh Berry OUT
- 55 Mark Wertz OUT
- 38b Mark Keesee OUT
- 75 Quincy Adkins OUT
- 91 Justin Carroll OUT
- 4 Timmy Phipps OUT
- 01 Philip Morris OUT
- 1 Terry Dease OUT
- 57 Justin Carroll OUT
- 12b Ryan Wilson OUT
- 38w Daniel Shelton OUT
- 22r Bobby McCarty OUT
- 22 Jordan Pickrel OUT
- 14 Ryan Repko OUT
- 12 Austin Thaxton OUT
