DARLINGTON, S.C. – As he’s been all season, Corey Heim was the car to beat on a muggy Saturday afternoon at Darlington Raceway. While Layne Riggs put the pressure on the 2025 Regular Season Champion, a downed tire with 20 to go put Heim on point to win a ludicrous eighth race of the season and opened the door for other playoff contenders to land big points day.
Daniel Hemric and Grant Enfinger strung together clean days behind Heim to round out the podium in the Sober or Slammer 200, while defending champion Ty Majeski recovered from a flat tire in Stage 1 to come home fourth to begin his run for a second-straight title.
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“It was just cool to see this 19 team find another level today — our most highly executed weekend of the year,” Hemric said after finishing second Saturday. “Proud of the timing of that for sure. Just important for this team to come together and we did that today. We found another level and it’s good to maximize that.”
The opening stage became one of attrition for the playoff field during a 47-lap stretch from green to stage checkered.
Kaden Honeycutt and Chandler Smith were the first to take a hit as they had tires go down. Smith slammed the wall in Turn 1, ending his day, while Honeycutt continued on but couldn’t inch his way back to the front.
Majeski was the third postseason driver with an early-race obstacle, but was able to put himself in position to take the wave around for Stage 2 and get back on the lead lap. The No. 98 ThorSport Racing driver could’ve opted to limp it around the closing laps of Stage 1 and risk going down multiple laps, but the championship mentality and experience of the Wisconsin native opted to put himself and his team in a better position.
“When things like that happen, the biggest thing is to not let the hurdle get too tall, right? So you have to minimize the damage,” Majeski said after the race. “It’s a hard thing to pull in when you have a flat tire, especially when you’re that close to the end of the stage. If I could just limp it around and stay on the lead lap, that would be better than doing a green-flag pit stop. But, yeah, I’m glad I pulled down. It would have been catastrophic one more corner so yeah, just minimizing the damage.”
Enfinger, the long-time Truck veteran, gave a fair assessment of his day. Despite not being able to battle with Heim and Riggs for the lead, the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports wheelman gave his team a high grade for delivering all race long and putting Enfinger in a spot to score 50 points Saturday.
“Just in general, I’d give us an A-minus for execution,” Enfinger said. “Still, maybe losing a little bit with just sheer potential to run with the 11. But we kept them and both the Front Row (Motorsports) trucks in our grasp the whole time. They were never light-years in front of us. Feel like guys were excellent on pit road and not crazy happy with my restarts, but just given we were restarting on the inside most of those times, I don’t know how much I’d have done different.”
Majeski ultimately was the biggest benefactor of the day as he gained nine points on the Round of 8 cutline after recovering from the flat tire. It will be a shot in the arm for a team that’s yet to reach Victory Lane in 2025 and has won at the next track on the docket — Bristol Motor Speedway (Sept. 11, 8 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Radio Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“It could have been a lot worse for sure,” Majeski said. “I think we’re (16) above going into Bristol, which is a good track for us. New Hampshire should be good as well. So, like where we’re at. Good recovery today. Nobody panicked and we’ll move on.”