BRISTOL, Tenn. – A frigid, cloud-covered Friday evening shrouded Bristol Motor Speedway as Corey Heim wheeled his No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota around the half-mile bullring.
Despite a cool start to the 250-lap affair, Heim warmed up as the night went along to score a third-place result amid battling for the victory in the closing laps.
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Heim led 16 laps in the race, all coming late as a mixture of pit strategies put him toward the front as the laps wound down. However, a pair of cautions in the final 30 laps bunched the field up and the ensuing restarts did not play in Heim’s favor.
“I’m used to having a lot of grip here on restarts, and I’ve always kind of done first-gear restarts here and always gotten out of the box good,” Heim said. “But for whatever reason, I just couldn’t really get the grip down today so tried second gear in the last restart and it was not any better. I don’t know if it was my fault for not prepping the tires correctly or what, but just really struggled to fire off in the box. Once we got going, I thought it was a little too tight there.”
Rolling off fourth after qualifying was canceled due to afternoon rain showers, Heim struggled in the opening laps on the clean concrete surface and dropped out of the top 10, failing to score stage points after 65 laps.
“It didn’t seem to be a whole lot different than your average Bristol race,” Heim said of the track conditions. “But to start the race, I certainly felt like we were chattering tires and really fighting the temperatures for grip to begin the race. But after about 15 laps, it seemed to kind of whittle itself down.”
Heim earned a fourth-place finish in Stage 2 to collect seven points, and by taking advantage of track position, he battled Rajah Caruth, Kyle Larson and Stage 2 winner Bayley Currey for the win before Chandler Smith rallied through the field after pitting before the start of the final stage to take his first checkered flag of 2025.
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With two wins already in the back pocket for the No. 11 team, Heim will go for win No. 3 on the year in the Craftsman Truck Series’ return to Rockingham Speedway next Friday for the first time since 2013 (5 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“Can’t complain with a top three. Couple stage points along the way,” Heim said. “Obviously had some issues in Stage 1 so got a little behind there. But I guess not a bad day. I thought we were pretty tight throughout the race, just getting behind there early. It’s cool to see this place move around. If you asked me before the race, I would have said that it would have been buried on the bottom with no other option the whole time. But seemed like we could make some other grooves work, which was good.”