By Seth Eggert, Writer
CONCORD, N.C. – TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim continued his record-breaking ways with a victory in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series EcoSave 250 at the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway ROVAL on Saturday afternoon.
The driver of the No. 11 Mobil 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro had to come from the back of the pack after an opening lap crash in the first corner.
CR7 Motorsports’ Grant Enfinger attempted to slide in behind Front Row Motorsports’ Layne Riggs, however he clipped the right-rear of the No. 34 Clew Ford F-150. The contact got Riggs out of shape and into Heim’s Toyota. The Marietta, Ga. native clipped the tire pack and outside SAFER barrier exiting turn one.
With his Toyota Tundra battered, he immediately brought his truck to the attention of his Scott Zipadelli (crew chief) led crew. What ensued was a methodical climb up through the field.
“Hats off to my TRICON guys,” Heim said. “Can’t do it without a good team like them and Toyota for all their support. This is my sixth year with them now and it’s been a lot of success since I signed with them.”
Heim flipped both the first and second stage to position himself for the final stage. Despite that, he still ended the second stage in eighth. He reached second in the final 10 laps, closing in to under 1.5 seconds behind his TRICON teammate Brent Crews.
“It was just a crazy year so far, really a crazy day from start to finish,” Heim recalled. “We fired off with so much speed to begin practice and I thought we were able to fine tune our truck to be really competitive. Then qualified on the pole, set ourselves up for a great day and kind of went downhill pretty quick there. I’ve never had a grind like that to come all the way back and win the race like that so that was pretty wild.”
With three laps to go in the inaugural Craftsman Truck Series race on the ROVAL the caution waved when Toni Breidinger’s TRICON Garage No. 5 OVERPLAY Toyota Tundra stalled exiting turn five.
With just two tires left in the pits due to the opening lap wreck and pit stop, the Toyota Racing Development driver pitted for fuel only. After leaving pit road with the lead, the most dominant driver this season thought that he was destined to lose the race.
However, on the restart the outside lane stumbled when Riggs clutch failed. A spin by Halmar-Friesen Racing’s Kaden Honeycutt in turn seven further opened up the gap between himself and those on fresh tires.
The 23-year-old cruised to a record setting 10th victory this season, breaking Greg Biffle’s record of nine wins in a single season set in 1999.
“But obviously I just had an opportunity there at the end with older tires,” Heim stated. “I literally came on the radio and said, we’re screwed here. I thought we were just with the newer tires being behind us. We were also running out of fuel a little bit, but it seemed like they stacked up enough behind us to where I could kind of limp it home.”
The 10th victory is just the latest in a long line of records that Heim has broken in 2025. He broke the record for all-time stage wins from Kyle Busch at New Hampshire Motor Speedway two weeks ago. Heim is closing in on the record for laps led in a single season, 91 markers behind the record of 1,533 laps led set by Mike Skinner in 1996.
“So just a crazy day, crazy year so far,” Heim admitted. “And for how much success we’ve had this year as an organization, we’ve actually had a lot of ups and downs.”
“You’d think it would be a pretty smooth sailing success, and it has been recently, but just the ups and downs we had earlier this year to come as far as we have and endure the tough races we had earlier this year and come back and have a streak like we are right now is pretty awesome.”
The win locks Heim into the Championship 4 race at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway on Friday, Oct. 31.
Before the championship race Heim still has to face both the Love’s RV Stop 225 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway and Slim Jim 200 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
Broadcast coverage of the Love’s RV Stop 225 at Talladega is scheduled to start on Friday, Oct. 17 at 4 p.m. ET, live on Fox Sports 1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.