MARTINSVILLE, Va. — From the afternoon to nightfall, Corey Heim had the fastest machine in the Craftsman Truck Series field at Martinsville Speedway. Unfortunately, for a second straight week, Heim will have to wait for his third victory of the season.
Starting from pole, the 22-year-old phenom dominated most of Friday’s night bout at the 0.526-mile circuit in Virginia, leading 149 of the 200 laps but walked away with a sixth-place finish.
“Pretty disappointing,” Heim said post-race. “Thought we had a really good Tundra tonight. We were pretty much just puttering around there in the lead, trying to keep the tires on it, and felt like we were really good. To struggle so bad at this place last year and be as fast as we were and not win is pretty frustrating. But guess it’s just part of coming to this race track.”
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Martinsville
It’s not uncommon for tempers to flare at a track like Martinsville, where the ultimate prize of a grandfather clock ratchets up the pressure amongst drivers. That was the case for most of the evening, where eight cautions were flown for incidents.
One of those incidents came after a Lap 166 restart where Heim was defending series rookie Kaden Honeycutt, who had spent most of the race as a top-three truck. Heim got bumped going into Turn 1 as the race went back green, allowing the No. 45 of Honeycutt to move into the inside lane and challenge for the top spot — something no one had the opportunity to do all night.
The next time around, Honeycutt squeezed Heim against the wall on the frontstretch, leading to the No. 11 Toyota of Heim having a tire go down and spinning in Turn 1.
“He used me up a little bit [Turn] 1 and 2 and then just kind of doored me out of [Turn] 4 and cut down my left rear,” Heim said. “I don’t think it was anything super malicious on his end. I don’t think he intended to do it, but intention’s one thing and result is another. Collaterally, he wrecked us there with the damage. So not super pleased about it.”
It may not have been an intentional move from Honeycutt, but it takes away what could’ve been another win for Heim, who has gone the last two seasons winning three or more races.
“I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen guys just flat-out get dumped here. I’d be a little more angry about that,” Heim said. “I don’t think he intended to wreck me by any means, but I would have liked to been cut a little bit of room, especially with like 35 to go, like it, if it’s overtime or something. But, yeah, we got 35 laps to go which is just a while around this place, so just unfortunate.”
Honeycutt was very apologetic in the moment after Heim came down pit road and restarted 25th as the second-to-last car on the lead lap. Post-race, Honeycutt adamantly wanted to right the wrong he caused Heim and put the whole situation behind them.
“I wanna say we ran out of room, but I really don’t want to say that, it’s really a dumb excuse to use so I’m going to look at it,” Honeycutt said. “I’m going to talk to him about it. I really don’t want to have that happen again. I want to earn his respect because he is a veteran in this series and he’s one to race for a championship at the end of the year.”
Honeycutt, the 2024 Snowball Derby champion, now has 39 Truck Series starts under his belt and leaves Martinsville with a 26th-place finish. More experience running toward the front and dueling with some of the series’ best can help the 21-year-old, who doesn’t want to make any enemies during his rookie campaign, going forward.
“I definitely don’t want to create bad blood early and try to make up for it the next time we race each other,” Honeycutt said. “So I’ll discuss it with him and hopefully we’ll get by it. We were both really fast, just hate that we have the results that we have tonight.”
Both Heim and Honeycutt will get their chance to battle again as the Truck Series returns to action Friday, April 11 at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Radio Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).