Bret Holmes has received quite the stock car education over the past nine months but his largest test will arguably come on Sunday at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville in the All-American 400.
While no one should discount his ARCA success this season, six top-10s in six starts, the 19-year-old would be the first to admit that the upcoming Civil War on Wheels is the tallest measuring stick he will have come across during his brief career.
“To be honest, this is the most intimidating field of teams I’ve ever seen,” Holmes told Stock Car Scene on Tuesday night. “For one, I already feel like Super Late Model racing is the toughest form of racing you can compete in. The competition level is just so high that the margin for error become extremely small.
“I won’t say that it’s harder than ARCA but you just can’t give anything up here because everyone is so competitive.”
Holmes competed in the previous two All-American 400s, but that came in the 300-lap Pro Late Model version of the event and knows the game has changed with the return of the Super Late Models. He has finishes of 16th and sixth in those two events and believes the long-distance race experience has value.
He showed that in April when he led six laps and finished fifth in the 200-lap ARCA Racing Series event at the Fairgrounds. All told, he feels physically prepared for the rigors of 400 laps around the high-banked 5/8-mile venue.
“I really feel like we should have won that ARCA race,” Holmes said. “The cautions just didn’t fall right so our tire strategy didn’t play out the way we intended. So I feel good about myself at Nashville. We’ve been working on our car and feel like we’ve made great progress on that front.
“We’ve had some bugs to work out of our Super but feel like this is the best we’ve ever got it based on our test last week.”
If all goes well, Holmes hopes to impress this weekend and again in the two remaining majors — next week’s Winchester 400 and the Snowball Derby. While he’s had success in limited ARCA starts, he feels it’s important to prove himself at this level before making the full-time jump to ARCA or the NASCAR K&N Pro Series.
“It’s like I said, this is the toughest competition in short track racing,” Holmes said. “I know there are a lot of good teams in Pro Late Models. The racing is good too. And obviously ARCA has some great teams as well. But I feel like races like the All-American, Winchester and the Derby is where you prove yourself.
“I want to follow in the footsteps of guys like Chase Elliott, Erik Jones and Daniel Hemric. They got it done here and it matters. These longer races teach you a lot about yourself and the teams. I love them and I’m hoping for a top-5 at the least.”
Holmes will also compete in next month’s ARCA finale at Kansas Speedway — his second start on an intermediate track. So while he has a lot to learn over the next several months, he looks poised to pass each of those upcoming tests.
