Peyton Sellers erred on the side of humility when describing the mood of his race team this week.

Sellers, 22, of Danville, Va., is on a roll going into Saturday's Grand National West race at Stockton 99 Speedway.

Sellers finished second at Stockton in a Western Late Model race two weeks ago. Last week, he was the runner-up in the Grand National West race at Phoenix International Raceway.

He enters the Basalite 150 at Stockton tied for the Grand National West points lead with Escalon's Eric Holmes at 330.

"Morale is kinda up around the shop now," Sellers said. "I like the series and I'm doing fairly well. I've gotten the chance to meet a lot of people. I feel at home."

Sellers won the Dodge Weekly Racing Series national championship last season out of South Boston (Va.) Speedway. That distinction got him noticed.

Sellers drives under the banner of Richard Childress Racing and Bill McAnally Racing.

Stockton 99's quarter-mile paved oval is much smaller than the four-tenths mile track in South Boston, and Sellers was happy he did more than test at Stockton.

"We learned so much more about what the track does at night," Sellers said. "It gains a lot of grip getting into a turn, but it loses it going out."

Sellers, who led 32 of the final 63 laps at Phoenix, said he isn't intimidated by Holmes' experience at Stockton 99.

"I'd like to come in there and outrun him," Sellers said.

PROTOTYPE AT STOCKTON — Brett Thompson of Jerome, Idaho, will be the first to test NASCAR's new composite fiberglass body in competition.

Next year, the one-piece molded synthetic bodies, designed to be easier on the pocketbook, will become mandatory.

Another suggested benefit is all the cars will have a universal body shape, which prevents one car model from having an aerodynamic advantage.