2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I champion

Peyton Sellers

When Peyton Sellers won his first NASCAR national championship 16 years ago, he hoped the title could be used as a stepping stone in his racing career.

In many ways, it was. He got an opportunity to race across the country, in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and with Richard Childress Racing.

“I went from a local driver driving around Virginia and North Carolina to all of a sudden my name was more on a national platform,” Sellers said.

Even though the 38-year-old said he didn’t take his first national championship for granted, he cherishes his second more. Sellers won the 2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I title this year by 34 points.

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division I regional champions

Peyton Sellers took the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division 1 national championship in 2021, his second such title. He did so with the Southeast Region championship in hand.

The two drivers who finished behind Sellers in the national Division I standings, though, did not end the season empty-handed. Both Jacob Goede (second in national standings) and Craig V0n Dohren (third) were named regional champions in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series.

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Jostens Rookie of the Year winners

With the 2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series season in the books, the Jostens Rookies of the Year for Division I competition have been named.

The award winners include one national Jostens Rookie of the Year and four regional winners.

This year’s national Jostens Rookie of the Year, Gunner Martin, hails as the Midwest Region rookie of the year, as well.

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division II champion

David Greenslit

David Greenslit had a specific goal in mind going into the 2021 race season. He wanted to win a national championship. He did it in 2020, and he wanted to do it again.

“That was one of our main goals,” Greeslit said. “We came into the year wanting to win both track championships and the national title.”

Greenslit won seven races in the R.E. Hinkley Street Stocks division at Claremont Motorsports Park in New Hampshire, and six races in the street stocks division at Hudson Speedway, also in New Hampshire. He took home the track championship at both tracks.

His 11 NASCAR wins and 27 top fives were enough to lead Greenslit to the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division II national championship by eight points over second-place Terry Schultz.

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division III champion

Chad Baxter

Chad Baxter thinks he may have finished in the top 10 in the national points once in his career prior to 2021. He came into the season simply looking to collect as many wins as possible and, maybe, go for a track championship in the Sportsman division at Seekonk Speedway.

But as the wins piled up, people started to notice how good of a season he was having.

“There’s a guy that I work with, he’s always looking at that type of stuff (the national points), and during our lunch breaks he was going through it and he would tell me where I was, and we kept on moving up,” Baxter said. “I was like, ‘Wow.’ Eventually I was like, ‘Oh, I think we might have a shot at this.’”

By the end of the season, Baxter had six wins, 13 top fives, his first Seekonk track championship and his first NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division III national title.

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division IV champion

Tom McCarthy

In just his first full season of racing, Tom McCarthy is a national champion.

McCarthy won the Auto Value Parts Store 4-Cylinder division championship at Michigan’s Berlin Raceway, and he picked up five wins and 19 top-five finishes in 21 races to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division IV national championship.

“It’s awesome,” McCarthy said. “It doesn’t get any better than that, right?”

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division V champion

Chris Vannausdle

A lot more people noticed when Chris Vannausdle showed up to the race track this season.

The Iowa driver gave fans something to watch, too. He won the sport compact division track championship at I-80 Speedway in Nebraska, and he finished second in the compacts division Adams County Speedway in Iowa.

His 12 wins and 24 top-five finishes in 30 races was enough to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division V national championship for the second straight season.

Vannausdle called his 2021 season “just a flawless year.”

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series state & provincal champions

PHOTOS: 2021 state & provincal champions

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2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series track champions

A lot more people noticed when Chris Vannausdle showed up to the race track this season.

The Iowa driver gave fans something to watch, too. He won the sport compact division track championship at I-80 Speedway in Nebraska, and he finished second in the compacts division Adams County Speedway in Iowa.

His 12 wins and 24 top-five finishes in 30 races was enough to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division V national championship for the second straight season.

Vannausdle called his 2021 season “just a flawless year.”

RELATED: 2021 Weekly Series championship celebration

For the second straight year, Vannausdle had to wait a while to get confirmation on his title. Both Adams County and I-80 finished the season in mid-September, and while he finished his races with about a 60 point lead, he had to sit and wait for more than a month and hope no one caught him.

Vannausdle ended up winning the title by 16 points over second-place Travis Pavlacky.

“My wife and I actually sat in the garage and looked for NASCAR tracks that week, and we couldn’t find anything close that we could feasibly drive to,” Vannausdle said. “So, to be honest, it was just like, it is what it is. We knew we had a substantial lead and wins, so we were hoping that was going to be enough to hold us.

“It’s a weight off your shoulders. It really was. I really don’t know what to say other than by God we did it, finally. And now we’re done for the year.”

After a grueling season going for a title in 2020, Vannausdle and his wife Dawn had decided they didn’t want to go for a second national championship. With most of the work done by just the two of them, and one track about an hour and a half away, it’s difficult for him to take time off work and fund that many races as his own primary sponsor.

But Vannausdle felt like he wasn’t able to celebrate his 2020 championship due to the cancellation of the NASCAR banquet and other events because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They wanted the chance to revel in another title properly.

“My wife and I had decided we were going to slow down, because it’s really expensive to race at two tracks, and we’re basically our own sponsors,” he said. “Around December it was like, ‘No, let’s slow down. We’re getting older.’ And I would say, probably around February we said, ‘You know what, let’s go for it one more time.’

“Originally we did not plan to go after it until the banquets got squashed last year and we said, ‘You know what, we really want to go to a banquet. Let’s go after it one last time.'”

The Vannausdles learned a lot from 2020 they were able to use in their 2021 quest for title No. 2.

“My wife and I got really good at maintenance and really checking the car over a little harder,” he said. “We caught stuff ahead of time before it broke at the track.”

Not only did Vannausdle get to celebrate his own championships, but he got to be a part of his son’s, as well. Bryan Vannausdle won the compacts track championship at Adams County by 21 points over his dad. Bryan was also second in the sports compact division at I-80.

“He earned it like I earned mine, and I’m proud of him, and I know he’s proud of me,” Chris Vannausdle said.

The title streak for Vannausdle will end at two, and there won’t be a chance of him changing his mind next year. He and his wife are relocating to South Carolina to move their business, High Side Chassis, to a new location. High Side Chassis builds cages for sports compact and front-wheel drive race cars, and last season, Vannausdle built nine cars for Adams County and I-80 drivers.

He wanted to expand his business to an area where drivers don’t have a builder close by.

“We wanted to bring High Side Chassis to a new location with a new challenge. That’s really what we’re looking at,” he said.

He’ll keep racing in his new home, but it won’t be at a NASCAR track.

There’s no doubt, though, that no matter where Vannausdle is racing, people will continue to notice the two-time NASCAR national champion.

“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve noticed lot more people noticing when we show up. Our name was always at the top of the list, and it’s pretty cool to have the announcer stating how you’re division five points leader and you were champion last year and stuff.

“We’re a pretty small cut little team. Just a husband and wife having fun.”

In just his first full season of racing, Tom McCarthy is a national champion.

McCarthy won the Auto Value Parts Store 4-Cylinder division championship at Michigan’s Berlin Raceway, and he picked up five wins and 19 top-five finishes in 21 races to win the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division IV national championship.

“It’s awesome,” McCarthy said. “It doesn’t get any better than that, right?”

RELATED: 2021 Weekly Series championship celebration

The 26-year-old driver actually thought he had the title won a week before it happened. He had the dates for the end of the NASCAR season wrong and saw he had about a 10 point lead in the standings following the final race at Berlin.

It was later that week when he realized second place finisher Gordon Farnum got a couple more races in on the final weekend of the season.

McCarthy won the title over Farnum by just four points.

McCarthy wasn’t too worried about points at that point in the season. He started the season hot, winning four of the first five points races at Berlin and jumping out to a 22-point lead in the NASCAR points in late August.

But he cooled off in the middle of the summer and struggled at times. He admits races became tedious and stressful trying to make sure he did everything perfectly while trying not to let anyone pass him.

McCarthy decided late in the season to just have fun with racing and not think about the points or perfection behind the wheel. When he changed his mentality, he saw improvements.

“It makes a huge difference,” he said of his focus on having fun behind the wheel. “It’s a long season. It’s a lot more work than you would think.”

McCarthy’s dad, Tom McCarthy II, also ran in Berlin’s 4-cylinder division. The two were joined by their cousin, T.J., and two brothers and two sisters, as well as other friends who the younger McCarthy said were always willing to help whenever needed.

The national title will likely be a one-off for McCarthy, who is getting married next June. He said he doesn’t plan on running a full season in 2022, but they’ll keep both cars so the father and son can still get out and race whenever possible.

“We hope to at least get out there a few times and make some laps and have some fun,” he said.

McCarthy said he always knew he likely wouldn’t return to full-time racing next summer, but he learned to love the sport and the people at Berlin in his first summer.

“It was hard walking away from the track the last night … just not knowing what was in store for next year,” he said. “During the last few weeks I was kind of ready just because it is so time consuming and stressful working on cars and getting everything ready and preparing everything to be successful when we go there. Just having all that in mind I was kind of ready for it to be done, but as soon as it was done, I was already starting to miss it.

“I think that says a lot for how good everyone at Berlin is and the track and how professional everything is. It’s a lot of fun, good place to race, good people to be around.”

Even though running a full season was a lot of work, and running for a national championship was even more work, McCarthy said the memories of his first championship summer is not something he’ll soon forget.

“It’s awesome. It’s always fun. I’m definitely going to miss it,” he said.

Chad Baxter thinks he may have finished in the top 10 in the national points once in his career prior to 2021. He came into the season simply looking to collect as many wins as possible and, maybe, go for a track championship in the Sportsman division at Seekonk Speedway.

But as the wins piled up, people started to notice how good of a season he was having.

“There’s a guy that I work with, he’s always looking at that type of stuff (the national points), and during our lunch breaks he was going through it and he would tell me where I was, and we kept on moving up,” Baxter said. “I was like, ‘Wow.’ Eventually I was like, ‘Oh, I think we might have a shot at this.'”

By the end of the season, Baxter had six wins, 13 top fives, his first Seekonk track championship and his first NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division III national title.

RELATED: 2021 Weekly Series championship celebration

Consistency was key for Baxter and his team, as they only finished outside of the top five twice in 15 races.

The team, which consisted of Baxter, his car owner, Richard Spragg, and his brother, Joe Baxter, built a brand new car to start the 2021 season.

“We were fast when we went to the first practice,” Baxter said. “The car felt good and it stayed consistent all year long.”

While the team wanted to go for a track championship at Seekonk, located in Seekonk, Massachusetts, its focus was on just getting wins every week. As long as Baxter and Co. kept winning, the points would come.

“It was not really too much more pressure than any regular event that we were going to,” he said. “We always had our sight set on trying to win the races so it didn’t put any extra pressure on you if you’re trying to go out and get wins.

“Definitely seeing that we had good cars all the time, to be able to always have a shot at a win, the points are definitely always there in the end.”

Baxter’s only other championship in his career was a track title at Thompson Speedway. He moved to race at Seekonk in 2015.

The veteran driver grew up around racing, watching his father when Baxter and his brother were little kids. He started in the sport himself when he was 19.

During the week, it’s typically just Baxter and Spragg tinkering on the car and getting it ready for Saturday nights. Joe Baxter began helping his brother and Spragg about midway through the season. The trio would typically bring two cars to the race track every weekend.

Baxter had to fight back tears when asked what it was like to be able to call himself a national champion after so many years in racing.

“It’s a great accomplishment, and it’s something I really never pictured, or could picture it happening,” he said. “It’s still hard to believe that I was able to achieve it.

“It means a lot, because it just shows that we were able to put a car out there and be able to be consistent, and all the hard work we put in, it paid off.”

The team hasn’t celebrated the championship too much, but they plan to the make the most of their awards banquets over the offseason.

When the spring rolls around, they’ll be trying to go for title No. 2.

“We’re going to try. We’ll put another good effort into it,” Baxter said. “The competition and being able to go out and do good and be competitive is just a task of its own. It’s just something to drive to make you better.”

David Greenslit had a specific goal in mind going into the 2021 race season. He wanted to win a national championship.

He did it in 2020, and he wanted to do it again.

“That was one of our main goals,” Greenslit said. “We came into the year wanting to win both track championships and the national title.”

Greenslit won seven races in the R.E. Hinkley Street Stocks division at Claremont Motorsports Park in New Hampshire, and six races in the street stocks division at Hudson Speedway, also in New Hampshire. He took home the track championship at both tracks.

His 11 NASCAR wins and 27 top fives were enough to lead Greenslit to the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series Division II national championship by eight points over second-place Terry Schultz.

RELATED: 2021 Weekly Series championship celebration

When Greenslit won his championship in 2020, it came down to him needing to win in the final race of the season to lock up the title. Even though this year’s title didn’t quite come down to the wire, it didn’t take any of the stress away as he wrapped up his season.

“Points watching the national stuff was a little stressful just knowing the last couple weeks we had run so many races where we had to finish second or better to gain any points on the national side of things,” he said. “Going into the last race, we thought we had it, and I had talked to Schultz a little bit via Facebook and saw that he had finished second on Friday night. So we thought we might have it clinched there, but it wasn’t 100 percent official until it came out.”

The key for Greenslit and his team was about focusing on having consistent good finishes. Only once did he finish outside of the top three at Claremont.

Greenslit was joined this season by his car owner, Tony Quadros, someone he met several years back on iRacing.

Quadros and Greenslit built a new car this year, which Greenslit said was “absolutely huge, because that thing is night and day to what we had before.”

Added Greenslit of Quadros: “He doesn’t really have the desire to race, but he loves racing. He puts everything into the car that we need.”

The rest of the crew includes Rocky Branch, who Greenslit said is “like our mad scientist” the way he’s always trying new things and working to figure out how to make the car faster.

Crew members Eric and Justin help in the shop, and Greenslit’s girlfriend and parents also provide much-needed support.

“It’s just kind of like a big family up here for us,” Greenslit said of his team. “All of us, we live and breathe racing and always want to do it. We’re always looking for another race to do. It’s countless hours. We’ll spend five days in the shop to race two days. It’s kind of crazy that they want to put in that much time as much as me.”

A busy season has led right into a busy offseason for Greenslit and his team. They haven’t even had much of a chance to celebrate their second title.

“We’re going to plan something at some point this offseason and get a bunch of friends and fellow racers together,” he said. “Even my competition, they’re all great people, they all love to race, and they all put their heart into it. It’s a good group of people we have up here racing with us.”

After racing 37 times this summer, going for a third title might be a bit more than Greenslit and his team can handle in 2022. He said they’ve all talked and will likely cut back next season to just trying for another track title at Claremont while racing a few others around New England here and there.

If a third title isn’t in the cards for the team, though, they’ll always have the memories of going back-to-back and achieving all of their goals.

“To do it two years in a row is just a huge accomplishment,” Greenslit said. “We work out of a two-bay garage in New Hampshire, so it’s quite the accomplishment for our small team.

“Accomplishing all three of those things is just absolutely huge for us.”

With the 2021 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series season in the books, the Jostens Rookies of the Year for Division I competition have been named.

The award winners include one national Jostens Rookie of the Year and four regional winners.

Below are the 2021 Jostens Rookie of the Year winners.

RELATED: 2021 Weekly Series championship celebration

2021 Jostens Rookie of the Year: Gunner Martin (Midwest Region champion)

Track	Starts	Wins	Top fives	Top 10s	Points
Central Missouri Speedway	20	9	18	19	404

Martin, the 2021 Jostens Rookie of the Year in the Midwest Region, scored enough points nationally to win the overall Rookie of the Year award, as well.

Martin won the Midwest award by a convincing 54 points over Dennis Elliott. He clinched the national award by 16 points over Dominion Raceway’s Landon Pembelton.

Southeast Region: Landon Pembelton

Track	Starts	Wins	Top fives	Top 10s	Points
Dominion Raceway	30	1	18	24	388

Pembelton finished second to Martin in the national rookie standings, also racing at South Boston Speedway and Langley Speedway.

In the Southeast Region, competing at Dominion Raceway, he cleared Jacob Borst for the award by 30 points.

Northeast Region: Wyatt Alexander

Track	Starts	Wins	Top fives	Top 10s	Points
Beech Ridge Motor Speedway	14	2	8	14	242

Alexander finished 10th in the national rookie standings, doing all of his racing at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, Maine. He scored top-10 finishes in all 14 races he started in 2021.

Alexander clinched the Northeast Region rookie award by 54 points over William Larue.

West Region: Patrick Gold

Track	Starts	Wins	Top fives	Top 10s	Points
Magic Valley Speedway	24	1	16	22	294

Gold finished sixth in the national rookie standings thanks to his success racing at Magic Valley Speedway in Twin Falls, Idaho.

In the West Region, Gold clinched the rookie title by 30 points over Camron Madsen.