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If the Snowball Derby were a Pro Late Model race, Bret Holmes would probably be the presumptive favorite to win this weekend at 5 Flags Speedway. After all, he just claimed the track championship in the division back in September.

Unfortunately for Holmes, though, the race will be contested in Super Late Models.

Still, don’t count him out.

Holmes, a young newcomer to the Alabama Gang and full-time student at Auburn University, will take a break from his studies to return to the race track and shoot for his second Snowball Derby start this Sunday.

Holmes made his first appearance in the Super Late Model classic last winter, making the feature but finishing 35th out of 37 cars after crashing out on lap 62 of the scheduled 300 laps. However, while the 19-year-old didn’t fair well in last season’s main event, he did make an impression among anybody that saw the Snowflake 100 Pro Late Model race one night earlier.

Mired back in 18th at the race’s start, Holmes drove through a stout field in the event to rally to a third-place result behind NASCAR regulars John Hunter Nemechek and Chase Elliott.

After catching everyone’s eye that night, Holmes has risen to national relevance courtesy of a part-time effort in the ARCA Racing Series.

With 2015 ARCA champion and fellow Alabama Gang member Grant Enfinger atop the box, Holmes competed in seven of the season’s 20 races, leading six laps in his debut at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville and finishing as high as third while tallying six top 10s.

Holmes also threw in a mix of both Pro and Super Late Model starts throughout the year. However, while he impressed in both the light Pros and the heavy ARCA cars, success in Supers has eluded the young shoe, as evidenced by his 27th-place finish in October’s All-American 400 at Nashville, the same venue where he’d managed a top five in ARCA.

“We’ve struggled a bit. It’s frustrating,” Holmes said in a recent interview with ARCA. “We had a great season in Pro Late Models and a good season in our first year racing ARCA. The only difference between the Pro Late Model and the Super is motor. The Super is somewhere in between the Pro Late Model and the ARCA car but we can’t figure out what’s going on. We’ll get it.”

If there’s one place where the Alabaman can right the ship, it’s 5 Flags Speedway.

Sure, finding success in Florida won’t be easy. 70 teams fill this weekend’s entry list, and a slew of talented drivers — Nemechek, Bubba Pollard and Enfinger among them — also enter the weekend with plans to end the 2016 season in victory lane.

Still, while Holmes’ Auburn Tigers may have been rolled by Enfinger’s Alabama Crimson Tide in the Iron Bowl, the first’s talent and experience at 5 Flags Speedway give him a shot at the upset on late model racing’s grandest stage.

Aaron Bearden is a contributing writer for Short Track Scene. Having grown up watching NASCAR and IndyCar, Bearden began following short track racing during his high school years before starting a blog about racing in college. A writer for Frontstretch and Motorsports Tribune, Bearden also covers NASCAR, IndyCar and other forms of open wheel racing.

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