Race Weekend Central

Bret Holmes Earns First Career ARCA Victory at Kansas

In an ARCA Menards Series Zoom call earlier this week, Bret Holmes predicted he would win the Dawn 150 at Kansas Speedway.

His prediction came true, as he won his first career ARCA race in his 69th career start.

“We’ve been working so hard for this. I’ve been working my whole life for this,” an emotional Holmes told Fox Sports 1 after climbing out of his family-owned No. 23 Chevrolet. “My team did this for me. It’s been a long, tough road. I want to thank my family, my friends; they believed in me when I didn’t. They kept pushing me during those hard days. It was well worth it. I’m just so happy, I’m at a loss for words. It’s awesome.

“That confidence slowly kept building as we put some good runs. It’s tough being the underdog competing against the big guys. I’m so happy. I drove my ass off. We’re going to keep our head down and go get some more.”

In addition to it being his first career win, the victory also marked the first win for a Chevrolet driver in ARCA since Gus Dean at Elko Speedway in 2018. The race also broke a string of Toyota victories, as Ty Majeski was the last driver to win in another manufacturer (Ford) last year at Chicagoland Speedway.

Ryan Repko, Riley Herbst, Corey Heim and Tanner Gray rounded out the top five finishers.

Holmes dominated the race in his maiden ARCA win. He became the second driver to notch his first career win this season, joining Drew Dollar, who won at Talladega Superspeedway. Holmes led a career-high 82 laps, including leading the field to both competition cautions. When the checkered flag flew, he won by 14.458 seconds over Repko.

Repko and Herbst each gained positions in the final lap after Heim suffered a flat left front tire with two laps to go. Heim made his first start of this season, driving the No. 12 Toyota owned by Andy Hillenburg but prepared by Venturini Motorsports.

Gray finished fifth after he received a penalty for a restart violation earlier in the race. He became the recipient of the lucky dog, which allowed him to drive back up to a top-five finish. Earlier today, Gray finished 18th in the NASCAR Gander & RV Outdoors Truck Series race at Kansas.

As for the other championship contenders, Michael Self finished sixth, Dollar finished seventh, Hailie Deegan finished ninth and Thad Moffitt finished 10th. Completing the top 10 finishers was Derek Griffith, who brought his No. 22 Chad Bryant Racing Ford home with an eighth-place finish.

Dollar and Deegan, who were involved in an incident earlier this season at Kentucky Speedway, raced each other aggressively in the race. They made contact, sending both their cars sideways, but both saved it and the race stayed green.

On lap 12, Russ Lane lost control of his No. 8 Toyota and wrecked in a fashion reminiscent to Ryan Preece in the NASCAR Cup Series race the previous night. Fortunately, Lane walked away uninjured.

After the eighth race of the season, Self remains the series points leader, though the win by Holmes reduced the lead. Self unofficially leads Holmes by nine points. In third and fourth place are the rookies Dollar and Deegan, 34 and 39 points behind, respectively. Moffitt is fifth in the point standings, though his deficit of 61 points is at least more than one full race’s worth of points.

2020 Dawn 150 Results

About the author

Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the beginning of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the site's ARCA Menards Series editor. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud University of Dayton alum.

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