ANTELOPE, California — Portland International Raceway is one of the Bill McAnally Racing team’s favorite road courses. For a second time in a row, the driver of the No. 20 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota Camry, Eric Holmes brought home a second place finish at Portland.
"Holmes moves into fourth in the chase"
Both practice session went well with the No. 20 NAPA Toyota Camry sixth fast for both sessions. Holmes qualified on the outside of row two for the 63-laps scheduled race.
Holmes took the green flag in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race, Bi-Mart Salute to the Troops “125” running with the leaders. The first caution came out at lap 18. Crew chief Duane Knorr made the call for Holmes to come to pit road at lap 20 and the NAPA team went to work packing the car with fuel. Holmes moved into the top-three by lap 24 and eight laps later, he took over second. At lap 44 as cars tried to go three-wide in the chicane, Holmes dropped into fourth. He radioed in that it was tough to pass so the decision was made to come in under caution at lap 48 and take on four fresh tires.
Now running in 15th as the last car on the lead lap, it was “go” time. Lap 53 had the NAPA Toyota knocking at the door of the top-ten. Ten laps later, Holmes had climbed all the way into fourth. The race finished under a green-white-checkered scenario. Holmes would cross the finish line in second.
“The NAPA Toyota was good but at best, I think we had a third or fourth place car,” said Holmes. “We hung in there and gambled when we decided to pit late in the race and took on four tires. There was a lot going on and I wasn’t sure that decision was going to pay off. Those were a wild couple of last laps. A couple of more and we might have had a win. Can’t thank NAPA, Toyota and the team enough for the great day.”
Holmes is currently fourth is the championship point standings and only 32 points out of the top-three.
Before the race, Holmes and the NAPA/Toyota team had lunch with over 100 VIP NAPA customers, employees and store owners from the Portland area. We would like to thank them for coming out and for their support.
The NKNP West Series race from Evergreen Speedway will air on SPEED on Thursday, July 28 at 3 p.m. PT. The Bi-Mart Salute to the Troops 125 from Portland will air on SPEED on Thursday, Aug. 18 also at 3 p.m. PT
The NASCAR K&N Pro Series West will next race in the Toyota/NAPA Auto Parts 150 at Colorado National Speedway north of Denver on Saturday, Aug. 6.
For more information on Bill McAnally Racing and our race partners, please visit our website at www.billmcanallyracing.com. Bill McAnally Racing is now on Facebook. Become a fan and stay up to date with the latest happenings with your favorite race teams. Also follow the team on BMR_NASCAR on Twitter.
