Bret Holmes, driver of the #23 Golden Eagle Syrup Chevrolet celebrates winning the 2020 series championship during the Speediatrics 150 for the ARCA Menards Series at Kansas Speedway on Friday, October 16, 2020. (Barry Cantrell/ARCA Racing)
Bret Holmes, driver of the #23 Golden Eagle Syrup Chevrolet celebrates winning the 2020 series championship during the Speediatrics 150 for the ARCA Menards Series at Kansas Speedway on Friday, October 16, 2020. (Barry Cantrell/ARCA Racing)

ARCA Menards Series Champion Bret Holmes Earns S&S Volvo Long Haul Award

www.arcaracing.com November 2, 2020

An adage oft used in racing circles states that, “To finish first, you must first finish.” Any driver who wants a chance of lifting the ARCA Menards Series championship trophy at the end of a 20-race, eight-month season must limit the mistakes and ensure he or she is on the track to see the checkered flag each week.

Indeed, every series champion dating back to 2007 has ended his season with no more than two DNFs on his record, a trend that held up once again in 2020. Newly crowned champion Bret Holmes finished 19 of the 20 races while running all but five laps throughout the year.

Turning the most circuits of any driver, Holmes headed the S&S Volvo Laps Completed standings this season, a significant factor in his rise as the 2020 ARCA Menards Series champion.

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Holmes is now a two-time S&S Volvo Long Haul Award winner, having also set the series’ high mark for total laps completed in 2019. His second consecutive triumph in this category caps an impressive two-season stretch of consistency in which the 23-year-old has completed all but 14 laps across 40 ARCA Menards Series races with just a single premature exit.

This marked a significant turnaround for Holmes and his family-run Bret Holmes Racing group that had endured seven DNFs and a temporary team hiatus over the course of the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

Holmes’ fortunes improved with the hiring of crew chief Shane Huffman for the 2019 season, allowing the rejuvenated BHR team to carry positive momentum into 2020.

Bret Holmes, driver of the #23 Golden Eagle Syrup Chevrolet celebrates winning the 2020 series championship during the Speediatrics 150 for the ARCA Menards Series at Kansas Speedway on Friday, October 16, 2020. (Barry Cantrell/ARCA Racing)

Holmes dodged the usual mayhem to finish ninth at Daytona before heading out west for the first ARCA Menards Series event at Phoenix Raceway. Chaos was on the menu again at Phoenix in a race dogged by frequent on-track incidents. Without concrete plans to run the full AMS schedule, Holmes pulled in on lap 146 of 150 amidst confusion during a late caution and settled for a 15th-place finish.

With a different perspective toward the season following the series’ multi-week pandemic hiatus, Holmes returned with top-five finishes at his home track of Talladega and at Pocono. At the ARCA Menards Series’ first short track race upon resumption of the season, the Calypso Lemonade 200 from Lucas Oil Raceway, long green flag stretches left him one lap down at the end of the race with a seventh-place finish. It would be the second and final race of the year in which Holmes did not finish on the lead lap. But that didn’t mean he was free of close calls along the way.

Holmes scored his first career General Tire Pole Award in his 75th AMS attempt when the series visited Lebanon I-44 Speedway for the first time. He led the opening 69 laps but had a charging Hailie Deegan on his tail.

Diving into Turn 1 on Lap 70, the two made contact, and Holmes slid up the track but was able to avoid major damage. Shortly after the ensuing restart, Holmes was working his way back to the front when he caught Chandler Smith, a lapped car that still had excellent speed. After some surprisingly intense racing between the pair, it appeared Holmes’ patience was wearing thin, and he and Smith got together on Lap 93. Smith went for a loop while Holmes squeezed by, again avoiding major damage. Holmes made it through the remainder of the evening relatively unscathed for a second-place finish.

Despite cutting his teeth at Talladega’s dirt track, just across the street from the main superspeedway, Holmes had no problem admitting the race that worried him the most at the end of the year was the Allen Crowe 100 at the Springfield Mile. The lone dirt race on the modified 2020 calendar loomed as a possible late-season wild card that could throw one last twist at a team before Kansas.

Right on cue, a wreck in Turn 4 on the first lap of the race collected drivers like outside polesitter Ty Gibbs and championship contender Michael Self. The race saw nine total cautions and the only green-white-checkered finish of the season, set up by the most impactful crash of the afternoon.

As the field roared toward Turn 1 on a Lap 98 restart, calamity broke out when one little wiggle at the front of the pack set off a chain reaction among the lead drivers. When the dust finally cleared, it was revealed that Self and Corey Heim had suffered race-ending damage, and that Holmes, too, had been collected.

Holmes re-fired and drove away, finishing third in one relatively intact piece.

The seasonlong S&S Volvo Long Haul Award comes with a $1,000 prize and will be presented to Holmes in the series’ upcoming year-end virtual banquet ceremony.