TY Gibbs, driver of the #18 Monster/Terrible Herbst/ORCA Toyota, celebrates winning the General Tire 150 for the ARCA Menards Series at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Kentucky on Saturday, July 11, 2020. (Aaron Doster/ARCA Racing)
TY Gibbs, driver of the #18 Monster/Terrible Herbst/ORCA Toyota, celebrates winning the General Tire 150 for the ARCA Menards Series at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Kentucky on Saturday, July 11, 2020. (Aaron Doster/ARCA Racing)

ARCA Menards Rewind: What We Learned at Kentucky

www.arcaracing.com July 12, 2020

For the briefest of moments, it appeared as it Ty Gibbs was heading for the wall — and a second straight disappointing finish.

And for 17 laps, it looks like Bret Holmes would add a trip to Victory Lane to his underdog story of 2020.

Gibbs saved the car and the victory, eventually, at Holmes’ expense. Meanwhile Drew Dollar and Hailie Deegan had differing views of their run-in, and Michael Self moved incrementally closer to his first championship while a second win still eluded him.

Here is what we learned from the General Tire 150 at Kentucky.

General Tire 150: Results| Race Recap | Photo Gallery

Gibbs Saves & Then Salvages

Once Gibbs got past Self on Lap 24, it looked as it the 17-year-old North Carolina was en route to the same dominating performance that netted him a win at Pocono Raceway two weeks ago.

But Gibbs’ No. 18 Monster/Terrible Herbst/ORCA Toyota appeared to spin his tires on the restart following the second of two race breaks on Lap 63, and that opened the door for Self to challenge for the lead. The two were side by side through Turn 4 when Self, on the inside, slid up the race track. He nearly collected Gibbs, but the contacted was enough to push them both out of the racing groove.

Sam Mayer and Holmes, who were side-by-side for third, skated by and into the lead.

“I’m not really mad at him,” Gibbs said of Self. “This track is so line sensitive. When we went down in there, we were both racing our guts out. He drove in hard, and just clipped me in the right rear. Fair game. Luckily I didn’t get in the fence there; stuff like that happens. That’s racing.

Gibbs not only rallied, but he picked his way back through the field and less than 20 laps later he was able to pressure — and pass — Holmes for the lead. Gibbs led the final 18 laps and won by over a second.

“My life goal is I always try to keep going, I never give up,” said Gibbs. “There’s a time right there I could have gave up, and I didn’t. I kept pushing forward. My team did. And we came home as winners.”

WATCH: Ty Gibbs Make The Save | And Then The Pass For The Lead

“It feels good to win my first mile and a half race, and my first super speedway race,” Gibbs said. “I came here as a kid, and now I’ve came here and won. Just like Pocono.”

Getting Closer

Holmes impressed with back-to-back third-place runs in the ARCA Menards Series East race at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway and then at his home track, Talladega Superspeedway. Then came his performance at Kentucky.

The 23-year-old from Munford, Alabama, had eight top fives in 20 races last year en route to a third-place finish in points. This year, he has already chalked up three top fives in six starts and his career-best runner-up finish in Saturday’s General Tire 150 moved him up to a tie for second in the championship standings.

“Second sucks, but we’re the underdog here,” said Holmes, who drives for a single-car, family-run team and is only one of two drivers not part of Venturini Motorsports, DGR Crosley or Joe Gibbs Racing in the top 10 in the championship standings. “It’s tough for us. We’ve slowly been building this entire time. It’s taken us a few years to do this, but I’m damn proud of my team.

“We’re knocking on the door. We’re right there.

Holmes’ 25 laps led in 2020 in the No. 23 Holmes II Excavation Inc. Chevrolet already eclipsed his career total of 17 coming in to the season. ”

Self Diagnosis

He led the first 23 laps and brought home the No. 25 Sinclair Lubricants Toyota third, adding to his championship points total. But after starting the season with a win at Daytona International Speedway, Self is still looking to get back to those winning ways.

“It was a pretty fun day,” said Self. “These guys made a lot of changes — good changes — all day. We were really strong that first run, but for some reason we were really edgy, really loose on restarts.

“I had a shot at it on the restart and got inside Ty and figured that was my shot at clean air. That’s a learning lesson for the young kids: If you’re tight to a guy’s right rear in these things, just like in an Xfinity car, just like a truck, you just loose all that side force down there. You saw that a handful of times today. That’s exactly what happened to us.”

Although he lost several positions on the failed bid for the lead, and a subsequent retaliatory bump from Gibbs, Self was able to score his fifth top five in six races.

“I just want to win,” said Self. “We’ve had really, really good cars last couple weeks and I just haven’t been able to win. Getting frustrated about that.”

Self can be excited about the upcoming schedule, though.

The ARCA Menards Series heads to Iowa Speedway Saturday, July 18 for the Shore Lunch 150 and then do Kansas Speedway the following week. A road course race at Daytona looms in August.

Self has two top fives in three ARCA starts at Iowa, and in 2013 became the first West driver to win the East-West combination race under the former NASCAR Pro Series banner at the .875-mile track. He has a win, two seconds and a third at Kansas, and as a road-course instructor by trade, Self has had considerable success when he’s required to turn both right and left.

Deegan, Dollar Tangle

Deegan’s run of top 10s to start the season ended at five when a wreck with 24 laps to go ended her day. Deegan went around off the nose of Dollar on the backstretch.

WATCH: Hailie Deegan Into The Backstretch Wall

“It happens, I guess, it’s racing when you have a lot of drivers with inexperience out there,” said the 18-year-old Deegan. “Rookie mistakes.

“We had a good run going there. There were a lot of mistakes being made there by other drivers that we were capitalizing on. We could have had a good points day. But it sucks for it to end like that, but it happens. It’s racing, I guess.”

The 14th-place finish dropped Deegan from second to fourth in points, two back of Dollar and Holmes and 24 behind Self.

For Dollar, he was able to finish fifth. It was the third top five for the 19-year-old from Atlanta.

“I’m not going to pin that on her,” said Dollar of the late-race incident with Deegan. “I didn’t have any room. It’s hard coming out of Turn 2, there’s no room, everybody is hugging that PJ1. I know it’s hard for the spotters, they don’t have a good view. From the outside, that’s kinda on the spotter, got to tell her outside. Maybe he did. But that’s just hard racing there at the end.”

Notes

  • In addition to Holmes, Ryan Huff (eighth) and Brad Smith (12th) also scored career-best finishes. Huff’s previous best was a ninth at Pocono, while Smith matched his best performance previously recorded four times over 351 previous starts.
  • Deegan’s wreck came just seven laps after her DGR Crosley teammate Tad Moffitt got loose and backed into the wall. Moffitt finished 15th and is fifth in points, 53 behind Self.