As a member of the men's soccer team at Averett University, Peyton Sellers is pretty good at weaving his way through defenders en route to the net.

Spend an evening at South Boston (Virginia) Speedway, and you'll see he's even better at negotiating his No. 26 car around and between the other racers vying for the checkered flag.

Through high school, the Danville, Virginia, resident played a variety of sports. As a senior, he lettered in football, soccer and track, and as an assistant coach for the girls' volleyball squad. Racing, however, has dominated throughout.

"I've been at the race track every weekend pretty much since I was 7," said Sellers, who comes by the racing bug naturally, from his father, Bert.

The younger Sellers began racing go-karts in the Virginia and Carolina area at age 7. By 13, he had moved on to the open-wheel mini sprints and, at 15, tried his hand at stock cars. Along the way, Sellers has earned countless poles, and captured rookie-of-the-year nods in the super-stock and late model stock car divisions at South Boston and in the limited sportsman division at the Orange County Speedway, where he also earned the 2001 track championship. He currently is competing for regional and national recognition in the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series as well as bidding for a local track championship in the late model stock car division at South Boston Speedway.

During his steady acceleration upward through the racing ranks, Sellers has managed to maintain a brutally hectic schedule that includes classes at Averett five days a week, soccer practice and matches in the fall, and racing at least once -- and sometimes twice -- a week (roughly March through September). When he has some spare moments, he also works part-time with the family's construction business.

"We take it pretty easy on Monday and Tuesday," Sellers said of a typical week. "Most of the time we are testing (the car) on Wednesday or Thursday. Friday night we do final set up on the car and load everything."

Departure time depends on which track he's racing that weekend, but in general is set for early on a Saturday morning. In addition to running at South Boston, he also competes at other designated tracks where he can collect points toward the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series championship.

The frenetic pace doesn't let up once Sellers and team arrive at the track. The race itself stands at the end of a long procession of activities, including unloading and setting up the car, navigating the car through inspection, qualifying and sometimes a prerace ceremony.

The diligence and hard work has paid off in wins and in increased exposure and opportunities. In February of this year, Sellers was invited to serve as lead driver for Synergy Racing Team in the 43rd annual Rolex 24 at Daytona -- a 24-hour-long road race that draws some of the top drivers from every racing discipline, including NASCAR Nextel Cup, IRL IndyCar Series and Formula One.

"I was headed to class one day and my cell phone rang. The team owner for Synergy said they'd heard I'd run some road races last year and they'd been keeping up with me a little bit. They wanted to know if I wanted to be the lead driver. I said yes, no problem," Sellers said.

While it's an experience he'd like to repeat sometime in the future, until then, Sellers is concentrating on reaching his more immediate goal of capturing regional and national honors in the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series. As of late July, he had compiled 10 wins and six top-10 finishes, and is leading the series' Division I points race, which runs through September 18. Should he finish the season in the top spot, he will not only claim one of the four divisional crowns and the accompanying $25,000 prize, but also has a chance to collar the $50,000 national championship bonus that goes to the divisional champion with the highest point total.

Looking beyond, Sellers is well on his way to achieving his ultimate goal of becoming a driver in the Nextel Cup Series, which features well-knowns such as Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle, and is just another level or two up from the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series.

If history is any kind of indicator, he'll make it. Clearly, success has chased him every step of the way thus far.

"I think it will happen. The timing has to be right. We've got to be seen by a good team and just have some luck," he said.