RICHMOND, Va: Eighteen months ago, when Corey Heim didn’t have a full-time ride or a clue what he would be doing in 2023, the 19-year-old racer served as a tour guide at the Toyota Performance Center.
Heim was coming off of a remarkable season in ARCA with Venturini Motorsports. He won six races, scored 16 top fives, and finished every race in the top 10. Despite an average finish of 3.1, Heim was outdone by Ty Gibbs with a 3.0 average result. Gibbs won 10 races and beat Heim by 37 points for the championship in a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Heim was scheduled to race a truck part-time for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2022—sharing driving duties with the boss in the No. 51 Tundra—but Busch’s lame-duck status with Toyota would ultimately present another obstacle for the young driver.
That didn’t prevent the Marietta, Ga., racer from winning last year at his home track, Atlanta Motor Speedway, in just his fifth career truck race. Heim backed up the win with a victory at World Wide Technology Raceway four starts later.
Two weeks before the season finale, Heim was introduced as the headliner for the newly minted TRICON Garage the Johnny Gray, David Gilliland and Kevin Ray – owned launching pad for Toyota development drivers in the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series.
Fast forward to this weekend at Richmond. Heim, 21, is leading the NCTS point standings, with this weekend’s Worldwide Express 250 to decide the regular season championship and the Playoff grid. After qualifying second on Friday, Heim, who holds a 42-point advantage over reigning truck champ Zane Smith, needs 19 points to clinch the regular season title.
“I feel like these guys make me look good, sometimes,” Heim said. “It’s been such a mutual effort between us two — TRICON Garage and I and this 11 crew. When I work hard, they work hard, and when they work hard, I work hard. So, I feel like it’s just a mutual effort of everyone doing what they’re supposed to do. I think everyone on the team knows what it takes to be a successful race team and everyone’s been putting that forward to get there.
“It’s been a process. We didn’t start the year the way we wanted to, but I put my complete faith in everyone that was a part of this organization to get where we are today. And I feel really good about where we’re at.”
Last year, Heim finished 14th in the Truck Series standings after missing seven races. This season, Heim took the lead following North Wilkesboro in May. He retained the points lead over the next five events despite being sidelined at WWTR due to illness.
Although Heim started racing at 5, he’s had to learn to “trust the process”—a phrase his crew chief Scott Zipadelli has woven into the fabric of the No. 11 TRICON Garage team.
“I doubted myself early going to a couple of race tracks for the first time like Vegas and Atlanta,” Heim admits. “I’d been there once before, but some of the tracks I just didn’t have a lot of experience on. I felt a little bit uncomfortable and didn’t really feel like I had a groove going.
“It’s definitely humbling to look back at that and realize that I’m having a lot of fun now. I feel like I’m successful and probably in the best stretch of my career right now. If you had told me three months ago that in July and April through June, I’d have the best stretch of my career, I’d probably call you crazy. But here we are.”
Zipadelli feels Heim has the talent and the work ethic to excel in the sport.
“Extremely proud of Corey,” Zipadelli said. “He’s done all the hard work on his own. The unique thing about him is you don’t have to push him to do it. He does it automatically. He’s got all of the obvious things down pat. We just work on communication skills and big-picture outlook—not to stress out over the things you can’t control and how race tracks change.
“But his development from his first days here to where we are now, I think it’s more about jelling and building confidence. He’s a good kid. He’s going to go somewhere.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
