Tanner Holmes celebrates in victory lane at Shelby County Speedway. (High Limit Racing photo)

By Jacob Seelman, SWN News Editor

HARLAN, Iowa (June 11, 2026) – Talk about one heck of a birthday gift.

Tanner Holmes celebrated his 23rd trip around the sun in style Thursday night at Shelby County Speedway, driving to his first national sprint car victory of any kind by topping the Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing debut at Shelby County Speedway.

Driving the Buch Motorsports No. 13, Holmes raced from fifth to first in just 12 laps around the third-mile dirt track, then mastered several restarts over the remainder of the 30-lap feature.

In the end, the Jacksonville, Ore., native pulled away from Brent Marks by 1.106 seconds to take the checkered flag and earn a moment he’ll never forget.

“I feel like I’ve lost [races] or been through so much hardship, even in this first year [with High Limit], because there have been moments where I wasn’t aggressive or wasn’t in the right spot,” Holmes reflected. “Tonight … I don’t know, I just was able to get in a different zone for myself and really make all good decisions until I hit the frontstretch wall with like six [laps] to go. That wasn’t very good. But overall, I felt like I just ran a really good race and never [got] too excited … but never was conservative either and just put my car exactly where I needed it.

“We’ve been training really hard for this myself and this team for a while. These guys have put the time in to be a really top national team, and we’re hoping to continue that throughout 2026.”

While Holmes started the feature from the inside of the third row, Dash winner Tanner Thorson rolled from the pole position and tried to set the early pace. However, Thorson was overhauled by fellow front-row starter Marks before he could get off turn two.

Marks led from there, but a yellow flag with two laps complete for the spun car of Danny Sams III forced an early re-rack.

That did little to slow Marks’ momentum, but behind him, Holmes was already moving up and used the outside groove to shoot into third place behind the top two on the lap-three restart.

Holmes found something he liked on the top side of the racetrack and stuck with it, ripping past Thorson off turn four to claim second at the end of the 10th lap and immediately setting his sights on Marks for the lead.

It took just one more lap for Holmes to reach Marks’ rear bumper before unloading his winning move – an identical surge off the turn-four banking to lead at the flagstand with 19 to go.

From there, Holmes hit his marks perfectly the rest of the way, even as a spate of cautions in the middle stages threatened to upend his time in the spotlight.

The first real drama came with 13 laps scored, when contact for third between incoming High Limit point leader Rico Abreu and rival Thorson led to Thorson spinning in turn four and Abreu coming to a stop with a broken front suspension.

It relegated both drivers well outside the top 10 and ended any hope of a good result for either one.

Holmes nailed the nest restart and gapped Marks by eight tenths immediately, doubling that before Chase Randall spun on the frontstretch on lap 17 to cause the race’s third slowdown.

Two more laps clicked off before the final incident of the night, when Kasey Kahne got upside down in turn three and brought out the only red flag of the event.

Kahne was uninjured, but his DNF was the first for the Macri Motorsports No. 39M crew since the former NASCAR Cup Series star linked up with them in the wake of primary driver Anthony Macri’s early-season injury.

Meanwhile, one more green-flag launch didn’t faze Holmes up front, as he chose the outside lane on each restart as the leader and hammered the cushion to pull away from all his pursuers.

His 230th overall 410 sprint car start was the one that finally allowed him to step into the national spotlight, after three prior NARC-King of the West Sprint Car Series triumphs on the West Coast.

“It’s simply unbelievable,” said Holmes of finally winning with High Limit. “Eight or nine years ago when I started sprint car racing, I said that if I could just get to High Limit or the World of Outlaws and win a national race, my whole deal is complete [at that point]. That was my main goal.

“To get here and to race with such an incredible team – Tom Buch, Sean (Strasbaugh, crew chief), Gabe, Tyler, the whole crew … they’ve been working incredibly hard. To reward them like this means so much. It’s hard to put into words.”

Marks settled for second, his fifth runner-up in the last seven High Limit features, with hard-charger Tyler Courtney completing the podium after starting 14th.

Fourth and fifth were Kerry Madsen and 12th-starting Kyle Larson, respectively.

Thorson got back to 13th after his incident with Abreu, who ended up five laps down in 21st place, though he was able to return from the work area during the caution for Randall’s frontstretch spin.

Abreu’s misfortune allowed Aaron Reutzel, who finished sixth, to trim the point lead down to nine before High Limit Racing’s next event at Montana’s Big Sky Speedway June 26-27.

The finish:

Interstate Batteries A Feature (30 laps): 1. 13-Tanner Holmes [5]; 2. 19-Brent Marks [2]; 3. 7BC-Tyler Courtney [14]; 4. 55-Kerry Madsen [3]; 5. 57-Kyle Larson [12]; 6. 87-Aaron Reutzel [9]; 7. 77-Giovanni Scelzi [7]; 8. 5-Brenham Crouch [4]; 9. 6-J.J. Hickle [10]; 10. 9-Daison Pursley [16]; 11. 24D-Danny Sams III [13]; 12. 21-Brian Brown [22]; 13. 88-Tanner Thorson [1]; 14. 42-Sye Lynch [11]; 15. 17GP-Hank Davis [19]; 16. 11-John Carney II [23]; 17. 25-Jy Corbet [17]; 18. G5-Gage Pulkrabek [20]; 19. 31-Koby Werkmeister [24]; 20. 9R-Chase Randall [18]; 21. 24-Rico Abreu [8]; 22. 26-Justin Peck [6]; 23. 39M-Kasey Kahne [15]; 24. 83-Sam Henderson [21].

Lap Leader(s): Tanner Thorson Grid, Brent Marks 1-11, Tanner Holmes 12-30.

Hard Charger: 7BC-Tyler Courtney (+11)