Bret Holmes at 9 pm ET on Monday, January 23, 2017
Photo – ARS
Bret Holmes is our guest on Fan4Racing NASCAR & Race Talk, Monday, January 23, 2017 at 9 pm ET. Call 929-477-1790 or tweet @Fan4RacingSite or @Sal_Sigala with any questions or comments during our LIVE broadcast.
Earlier this month, Bret Holmes Racing announced their intention to race the full 2017 season in the ARCA Racing Series with driver Bret Holmes and veteran crew chief Bryan Barry. Holmes raced seven ARCA events last year with 2015 series’ champion Grant Enfinger as his crew chief. Together they earned three top-five and six top-ten finishes with an average finish of 8.6.
That success was enough encouragement for Bret Holmes Racing to move forward in committing to 20 ARCA races this season. With Enfinger moving his efforts to NASCAR this season to advance his own racing career, the team looked to Bryan Barry to fill the crew chief role this year.
“We’ve got a newer team,” says Holmes. “Bryan Berry is going to be crew-chiefing us this year. Bryan is really experienced…crew-chiefed for Ross Chastain on the Xfinity side, Brendan Gaughan…several others. We knew him through a family friend from racing on the dirt. Really looking forward to having Bryan on board and fortunately we’re going to have Sam Schram back again working for us.
The focus this season for Holmes is on doing well in the ARCA Racing Series with his new team.
“ARCA’s going to be our first priority this year. We’re not running a lot of late-model stuff so we can keep our main concentration on ARCA. It’s going to be really tough this year. There’s going to be a lot more full-time teams…more competition all the way around.
“Fortunately, we got to race at Talladega last year, so we can take that experience and take it to Daytona.”
And so they did with several ARCA teams testing at Daytona last week, including the No. 23 of Bret Holmes Racing. Holmes finished eighth fastest overall (187.954 mph) among the 63 drivers participating in the test session.
“I think I left there pretty confident,” said Holmes. “We were top-ten on the board both days. Anything can happen in superspeedway racing, but as long as we’re up there with those speeds, we’ll have a shot.”
Between his racing schedule and his race shop in Statesville, North Carolina, the Munford, Alabama native, Holmes is also a full-time student at Alabama’s Auburn University.
“It’s only the second or third week,” says Holmes. “But school’s going good…. The ARCA schedule really lends itself to my school schedule. There’s only three or four ARCA races this semester of school as opposed to my late-model schedule where you’re trying to race all year around.”
A sophomore at Auburn studying Building Science, last week was a more hectic week for Holmes with testing at Daytona International Speedway in Florida. But Holmes is happy with his team and their results at Daytona, giving him a lot of confidence heading into ARCA Racing’s season opener at Daytona in February.