Corey Heim Wins NASCAR Truck Series Championship In Overtime Thriller
It was Heim time in double overtime!
Corey Heim capped off a dominant season in the NASCAR Truck Series with his 12th win and the championship, but it wasn’t easy in the end.
Heim swept the first two stages at Phoenix Raceway, but was ready to settle for a second place finish behind pole-sitter Layne Riggs, who was knocked out of the playoffs at Martinsville, when the yellow flag came out with three laps to go.
The front-runners came into the pits, but while several took just two tires, Heim opted for four and the crew had a bit of trouble with the stop, which led to him taking the restart from 10th.
Heim then pulled off an amazing move to the inside of the track’s dogleg turn, taking the field seven wide to move into second place behind fellow Championship 4 driver Ty Majeski, who was one of the two-tire trucks.
Another caution before the white flag sent the race into a second overtime, where Heim went to the inside again to pass Majeski and drive away for his 12th win of the season and a well-deserved title.
I had a lot of thoughts brewing in the back of my head about just how terrible the end of the race could have gone for us there, starting 10th on fresh tires with 10 to go.
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“I was completely determined to make sure that we had a shot at it at the end of the day,” Heim said after the race. “I’m not going to say I’m going to go and wreck by any means, but I drove into three on the inside wall there as hard as I could. It stuck thankfully. If not, we would have probably wrecked about 20 of ’em.”
“I didn’t think we’d be that much better than everyone else, being able to drive around the inside wall, take all those spots. Certainly we did the right thing. That’s why we were in Victory Lane.”
Despite his amazing season, Heim doesn’t have a full-time ride for 2026, but is expected to do a mix of O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (which will be the new name of the Xfinity Series) and Cup Series races for various Toyota teams.