AVONDALE, Ariz. — Corey Heim and Christian Eckes combined to win 10 of the 23 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race in 2024. But on the night it mattered most, neither had enough to contend with Ty Majeski.
While Majeski scurried away to dominate the Truck Series’ season finale at Phoenix Raceway, Heim and Eckes were left to settle for second and third, respectively. Fellow Championship 4 contender Grant Enfinger, who won two of the season’s final four races, left the Arizona desert with a fifth-place finish, fourth in the final season rundown.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Phoenix
Heim and his No. 11 Tricon Garage team, six-time winners this year, rallied from Heim’s only penalty of the season — a Lap 99 restart violation that sent Heim to the rear of the field for the following restart. Two quick cautions allowed Heim to charge through the field and back into the top five, but Majeski’s Ford was simply untouchable.
“They were unbelievably lights out all race,” Heim said. “From the get-go, I felt like we fired off pretty free in Stage 1 and we were able to reel him back in. He seemed to struggle in traffic a little bit. Once they adjusted on it and the cautions started cycling to the point where we never really hit a lot of lapped traffic, it was about over for me.”
Heim’s frustration with the penalty was obvious on the radio, but crew chief Scott Zipadelli both understood the penalty and why Heim’s pressure valve popped in the final stage of Friday’s 150-lap showdown.
“He definitely got frustrated,” Zipadelli told NASCAR.com. “You know, there’s a lot on the line when you come here for this race, and there’s a lot of pressure we put on ourselves. You know, you think about it, and you dream about this day, and you don’t want to give it away on a penalty like that. Obviously, he didn’t see the view that we saw.”
WATCH: Multi-truck crash triggers red flag at Phoenix
A runner-up result doesn’t negate what the No. 11 team was able to do in 2024, doubling its three-win total in 2023 to six in 2024 and collecting two more top fives in the process.
“It was a good year,” Zipadelli said. “NASCAR threw a lot of rule changes at us over the winter, and we had a lot of work to do. And I think we achieved our goals. We wanted to win more races than last year, and we doubled our wins. We gave a few away this year, but we’re going to work really hard on our short-track package over the winter time and get that as good as our mile-and-a-half packages. And next year, we hope to achieve more.”
They’ll have the opportunity to build further on that success in 2025 as both Heim and Zipadelli return to the No. 11 team for a third season next year.
“The more you work together, the easier it gets,” Zipadelli said. “The biggest thing is you want to keep all your people. It’s all about people. You don’t want to go through the year changing road guys, mechanics, all that. So yeah, being able to keep our group together for a few years is really going to be something special because you saw what we did the first year and then the second year. Obviously the third year, we’re even more motivated to get that big trophy.”
Eckes and his No. 19 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing program were victorious four times this season and entered as the defending winners of the season finale. Friday, Eckes qualified fourth — third of the Championship 4 drivers behind Majeski and Heim but directly ahead of Enfinger. Eckes ran approximately third of the group all night long, unable to make headway on either Majeski or Heim.
But a Lap 111 caution allowed Eckes and Enfinger to hit pit road for tires that were 20 laps fresher than either of the other two frontrunners. Eckes charged from 16th back to the top five but still needed one last caution for a real shot at the ultimate prize.
“We kind of felt like we had maximized what we were going to get before that pit stop,” crew chief Charles Denike told NASCAR.com. “And the 98 and 11 were just stronger. I didn’t have much left to work on on balance. We needed to do something different and try to flip it on tires. We still had another set of tires left laying. And if the caution had come out with 10 to go, I feel confident that all of us would have come and put them on, so it at least allowed us to be on the attack.
“It was starting to feel a little vulnerable there running wherever we were — fifth or so — so (fresh) tires were better than not being on tires.”
Championship or not, the No. 19 team’s season was phenomenal, collecting four wins in consecutive seasons and this year earning 22 top-10 finishes — 21 straight, with only a 32nd-place finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February a blemish on an otherwise perfect year in the top-10 column.
“All you can ask for is to have a shot here, and that’s what we did,” said Denike, who will move to the Cup Series to crew chief Bubba Wallace in 2025. “We just came up a little bit short against those two. But still really proud to go home third in points and with four wins — four wins on both years, so total of eight. Incredible streak of top 10s and a bunch of top fives this year, led laps and almost all the races. So I mean, it’s so much to be proud of, and the whole group has worked extremely hard to be where they’re at right now.”
Enfinger’s season in the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet was not as dominant as either Heim’s or Eckes’, but a solid showing late in the year culminated in yet another Championship 4 appearance.
“I feel like we’ve proven to not only maybe y’all and our competitors, but to ourselves that we can do this, we can contend for wins and contend for championships,” Enfinger said. “I’m really proud of kind of the growth we’ve had all year, the buying-in from everybody we’ve had all year. We still have a long ways to go from an organization to get it to kind of what me and Jeff (Stankiewicz, crew chief) and (team general manager Michael) Shelton all envisioned and Codie (Rohrbaugh, team owner).”
“Proud of how far we have come. I feel like we earned our spot here.”