By Christian Koelle, Staff Writer
Las Vegas has become one of Bret Holmes’s best tracks, despite his disappointing Truck Series debut there in 2021. Friday Night, the 2020 ARCA Menards Series champion earned his first career top-10 finish in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
“I’m very proud of our top 10 finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Friday night,” Holmes told Kickin’ the Tires. “We had speed like that most of last year without practice but starting in the back with no qualifying made it 10 times more difficult. I feel like this year with both practice and qualifying back, we’ll be running in the top 10 every race. And, hopefully, some wins pretty soon, too. Shane (Huffman, crew chief) and the team worked hard and brought a great truck. We keep having good runs like this, and the momentum will carry us into better results. I can’t wait for the rest of the season.”
It has been a long road to get to this point. Last season, Holmes attempted to make eight NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races making seven of those. The season start was a struggle as he DNF’ed in two of the first four starts he made at Las Vegas and Charlotte. Holmes failed to qualify for NASCAR’s return to Nashville Superspeedway and took a slight break.
Sam Mayer ran the No. 32 at Watkins Glen and Bristol earning the best, a 9th place finish at The Glen. This all before Holmes returned to the seat at Las Vegas in September when he earned his career-best finish of 11th. He’d follow that up with a 15th place finish at his home track in Talladega before finishing 22nd in his season finale at Martinsville.
The bad luck had seemed to return as he had clutch issues at Daytona resulting in a 35th place finish.
After starting 32nd, Holmes would look to improve on his Las Vegas performance from September 2021. Battling with the likes of Matt Crafton, Austin Wayne Self, and others along with the attrition that was the final lap at Las Vegas, he’d bring the No. 32 Holmes ll Excavation Chevrolet Silverado home in the eighth position, his career-best finish in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.