by Jeff Bartlett
It had been six months since the Geico Late Model class had a feature at Dominion Raceway, but Saturday Night, Peyton Sellers and his stable of drivers picked up right where they left off last year taking both 60 lap twin features to open the season in a stout 21 car field for opening night.
All three cars, Sellers, Landon Pembelton, and Daniel Silvestri offloaded Saturday and had top practice times throughout the day. They backed that up by taking the top three qualifying spots and Sellers winning the pole with a 14.989, followed by Pembelton and Silvestri. After the invert, Doug Barnes started on the pole and Sellers rolled off fifth.
The first feature went clean and green for the first 33 laps until a caution and the second one came out only two laps later due to a spin by Sellers in turn two dropping last year's track Champion back to 13th. Just prior to the caution coming out, Silvestri took the lead over from Barnes and would never give it back going on to get his first win of the year at Dominion. Sellers was able to battle back in the last 25 laps to come home fourth. The top five finishers were Silvestri, Barnes, Mason Bailey, Sellers, and Mini Tyrell.
The second feature had John Goin on the pole after the mandatory eight car invert. Goin led the first 16 laps before Tyrell assumed the lead with Sellers right in his tire tracks. It took Sellers eight more laps to reel Tyrell in, make the pass and never look back. Only one caution bunched the field back up, but Sellers navigated it perfectly and went on to take his first checkered flag of the year. The top four finishers were Sellers, Tyrell, Silvestri and Davey Callihan. Callihan had one of the strongest cars in the field Saturday night, but an electrical issue in the first race relegated him to 15th after running in the top five. He started 15th in the second feature and was the hard charger of the night driving his way to a fourth-place finish.
When asked after the race what it was like to come back here after a year away to drive on the CARS tour and get the win, Silvestri said “That car was really good and once it got out front it was a rocket ship. Our Sellers racing team did a great job preparing for tonight”.
The Dominion Stock class kicked off their 2022 season Saturday night with Dan Rogers looking to continue his dominant performance that he had in 2021. He took the pole with a 17.596 but was inverted to fifth. Early in the feature Rogers had driven to second behind Chris Sylvester, but the two made contact and Rogers fell back in the field. Richard Powers inherited the lead and would go on to take the first feature of the year. Todd Ruggles and Rogers came home second and third.
Other classes and winners from Saturday night included Alek Andrecs getting the win for the Legends division, Jesse Jones taking the checkered in the Mini Stock feature, Brian Rundstrom in the Bando Feature, and John Andrew won in the Any Car division.
This Saturday the 16th we have twin races for the Virginia Racer Kate Model division, as well as the Modifieds, UCARS, Any Cars and Virginia Vintage also in action. Gates open at 5 pm and the green flag drops at 7 pm.
