ANTELOPE, California — Eric Holmes, driver of the No. 20 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota, left the NASCAR's K&N Pro Series West event at Miller Motorsports Park (Toole, UT) Saturday finishing in thirteenth. The driver from Bill McAnally Racing hoped to close the point gap on his way to his fourth series championship when unfortunately after leading the most laps of the event and leading the race, the No. 20 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry ran out of fuel on the 2.2- road course at Miller Motorsports Park.
" Holmes sixth in the Points Chase"
Holmes qualified the No. 20 NAPA Toyota in third for the scheduled 50-lap race event. He was called to pit road during the first caution at lap eleven for fuel. Returning to competition now in 25th, he was back in the top ten within ten laps. He returned to pit road at lap 20 to top off with fuel as did all the lead lap cars.
By lap 30, Holmes was running in second behind his teammate, Moses Smith. He took the lead at lap 34 after Smith suffered a flat right side tire holding off the point’s leader who was in close pursuit. At the restart at lap 41, Pursley would get past Holmes on the outside of turn one. Holmes regained the lead a few laps later.
With his first Victory at MMP in sight and coming to the white flag, NASCAR called the caution as a car was stopped in turn three. Holmes took the outside position to restart the race and pulled to a three car length lead. One again coming to the white flag, the yellow flag was displayed as two cars were involved in an accident at turn seven. Holmes once again opted to restart on the outside. He charged thru the corners dubbed ‘First Attitude”, “Second Attitude”, and was cruising thru the third dubbed “Bad Attitude” when he radioed in that he was out of fuel. The NAPA Toyota was pushed to pit road and Holmes quickly got back out still on the lead lap in 17th. With the third “Green-White-Checkered” scenario, Holmes made a valiant charge finishing in 13th.
The race was set to run 50 laps but eventually went to 63 laps, pushing the race an addition 13 laps and more than 28 miles past the scheduled distance.
“The No. 20 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry felt good all day,” said Holmes. “This new configuration at MMP was really tough to pass on. I did my best to not tear the car up because I really want to take this new Toyota to Infineon in June.”
“It was a disappointing afternoon,” continued Holmes. “I’ve never seen cautions thrown like that.”
“Our NAPA Toyota felt really good when it was running out front. I love this car! We’ll head to Iowa and we’ll turn this bad luck around. There’s a lot of racing still ahead.”
The next race for the teams from Bill McAnally Racing will be on Saturday, May 21st at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa. It is the annual East/West combination event. Holmes finished in third last May for the West Series. NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Kyle Busch holds the qualifying record for this event.
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