Fuel added to Peyton Sellers’ fire

By From Staff

Published: May 9, 2008

Peyton Sellers figured the news was going to be bad, but knowing didn’t help soften the blow one bit when it came.

Sellers won the opening race of the Camping World East Series season at Greenville-Pickens Speedway on April 19, and for a brief moment he was elated. But then came the post-race inspection, and Sellers’ joy quickly went south when he and his Andy Santerre Motorsports team were informed that the right-rear shock on their No. 44 Chevrolet was illegal.

Sellers had to wait three days to learn what punishment would be handed down. And when the verdict came, it found Sellers at the ASM shop in Charlotte, N.C., seated behind the wheel of a car the team was preparing for testing.

Sue Santerre, the wife of team owner Andy Santerre, carried the words to Sellers with tears in her eyes, and all the Danville native had to do was take one look at her to know just how bad things were about to get.

“I really expected a fine or a suspension of a crew chief,” Sellers said. “But I had no idea they would come down on us that hard. I was really caught off guard.”

Not only was Sellers stripped of his win at Greenville-Pickens, he was also given last-place points. His crew chief and brother, H.C. Sellers, was also suspended for three races. But worst of all, while H.C. can argue for reinstatement, Peyton was denied a chance at appealing.

There was no escaping the verdict, and no amount of understanding or acceptance was going to take the pain away.

“I feel that I was crucified for jaywalking,” Peyton said. “But I have to respect what NASCAR has to say. We chose to race in this series, and NASCAR is the East Series’ governing body.”

A CASE OF OVERSIGHT

Peyton had gone through hell to get that win at Greenville-Pickens. He and his crew had worked hard enough in testing that they won the pole, but when Peyton’s brakes went out midway through the race he went into the wall. It seemed as if all that effort was going to be for naught. Yet, Peyton refused to give up. After coming into the pits for repairs and new brakes, Peyton went back out and battled his way back into first place — beating out ASM teammate Austin Dillon to the checkered flag to boot.

Peyton was on top of the world. But then came the post-race inspection.

Peyton’s car was looked over with a fine-toothed comb. Parts were disassembled and looked at, and only then did race officials notice what they had missed in their pre-race scan of the vehicle — a small addition to the right-rear shock of the No. 44 called a base valve.

The base valve allows for a lower gas pressure to be used in shocks, providing better grip for the car, particularly in wet conditions. It is also an illegal part on East Series cars.

“The shocks on Sellers’ No. 44 car were found to be in violation of the NASCAR 2008 rulebook,” NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said in an e-mail. “Shock absorber base valves will not be permitted. … The violation was deemed to be a significant performance advantage.”

Significant? Sure, if the part had been in use. But that’s the thing. Peyton hadn’t been running on a lower, illegal gas pressure. He and his crew didn’t even know the base valve was there.

ASM had sold the shock set to a Hooters Pro Cup team last season, a racing series in which base valves are legal. But that Pro Cup team went belly up after last season and offered to let ASM buy the shocks back. Peyton’s team took the offer and thought little of the transaction after giving the pieces a once-over — running dyno tests on the shocks and getting the same results back from those tests from when they had initially owned them.

It seemed as though the shocks were unchanged, and based on the dyno tests Peyton’s crew decided to strap them on the car. However, along the way in testing three of those repurchased shocks were swapped out for others in an effort to get faster. The only one left on was the right rear, and that decision had just come back to bite Peyton — hard.

“Oversight came in to play on our half when we didn’t take that shock apart and make sure nobody had done anything to it,” Peyton said. “I think it takes the wind right out of your sails. It’s definitely something we would have had right if we had known.”

A HUNG JURY

As recently as last year, this infraction wouldn’t have become such a black eye for Peyton. A year ago, there was a sliding scale of punishment for the East Series that took several variables into account, including character.

If that had still been the case, Peyton and his brother would have had little reason to worry.

“I think anybody that knows us would know better,” H.C. said. “It’s just frustrating. And it’s not just me and Peyton either, Andy Santerre has a first-class reputation in that series. They’ve never had a penalty for a rules infraction.”

But the rules had changed since last season. The system hadn’t worked out in a few cases, so it was scrapped.

That’s not the part that bugs Peyton and H.C. though. They know they’re playing in the East Series’ sandbox and, as such, have to follow the series’ rules to the letter. After all, NASCAR had simply fallen back on past precedent set in cases where drivers violated the rules with tire and gear infractions — big no-no’s in racing. Those drivers had also been thrown to the back of the pack to receive last-place points.

No, what got to the Sellers brothers was that they were never given the opportunity to state their case or defend themselves. It didn’t matter whether they had taken advantage of the base valve or not. It was an open and shut case. NASCAR called, told Peyton and H.C. that they could not appeal the penalty, and then and only then told the pair what the penalty was.

“We were given a guilty verdict but never given an opportunity to plead our case,” Peyton said. “It’s just disheartening, because the system needs some ironing out. I’ll never know why I wasn’t given the opportunity to plead my case.”

In a unique twist though, Peyton was allowed to keep his pole award, even though first place was passed to Dillon, who had placed second behind Sellers in a 1-2 finish for ASM.

“Austin Dillon’s crew chief told me it was like going bass fishing and finding one on the bank and having it mounted,” H.C. said. “It just wasn’t the same.”

‘FUEL TO THE FIRE’

The tough part was coming to terms with the penalty. Peyton went from thinking he had the tiger by the tail in the East Series one day to having to swallow last-place points the next. He also had to explain to his sponsors what had happened. And even though Peyton said they were all very understanding, those were meetings he never believed he would ever find himself sitting through.

The shock of it all was enough to send Peyton in something akin to a brief depression.

“It bogged me down immediately,” Peyton said. “I was discouraged and ready to go in another direction, whatever that was.

“But everybody else behind the scenes, it didn’t knock them down. So that gave me encouragement.”

With the support of hit crew, team and sponsors, Peyton dragged himself out of that funk. And then he managed to find even more people who believed in him.

On Thursday, Peyton added Specialty Fertilizer Products as a main sponsor on the No. 44 for three this season. For a guy who had little enough sponsors as it was during a largely self-funded rookie season on the East Series last year, the support and the circumstances have turned what once was a burning desire to win into a blazing inferno in Peyton’s gut.

“I think he’s going to have a different attitude all together,” H.C. said of his brother. “He already has enough fight in him, but he’s going to have even more now. He’s going to be hard to deal with.”

Added Peyton: “As if we didn’t have a drive to win as it was, this has really added fuel to the fire.”

That fire has been simmering for a while now. Peyton is still in the midst of a month-long layoff between the East Series opener and its next race at Iowa Speedway on May 18. And while his crew have been turning over every stone on the No. 44 to make sure there are no more surprises to be found, time has not dulled the memory of what happened at Greenville-Pickens one bit for Peyton. He has every intention of proving that his season-opening win was neither a fluke nor the result of any kind of tampering on the part of his team. He wants to prove that he is better than that.

“Our goal is to win the next 12 races. Everybody at ASM is on a mission to win,” Peyton said. “I feel like everybody on my team has something to prove now.

“All I have to do is go out there and drive the car as hard as I can.”

• Contact Matt Fuchs at or (434) 791-7997.