It will be a race weekend everyone will always remember, for two specific reasons. For one, the NASCAR Cup Series competed on a street course on Naval Base Coronado in San Diego, California. Additionally, the race will always be known as the event that Corey Heim, an expected future NASCAR Cup Series star, got his first career win.
The 23-year-old driver, who is competing part-time as the driver of the No. 67 23XI Racing Toyota this season and is slated to move full-time to the NASCAR Cup Series next season, took the win in just his 13th career start, and the victory came after a hard-fought battle with Tyler Reddick in the closing laps.
It was an unbelievable finish to the weekend for Heim.
“I’m speechless,” Heim explained in his post-race interview on Prime Video.
Scoring a first career win is always a stunning moment for a race car driver, but for Heim, this was especially unexpected, as he felt his car wasn’t anywhere near good enough to contend for the win over the opening two runs of the race.
“I mean, we started the race, I mean, I think we started 13th. We fell straight back to 20th. Then put on our scuffs from qualifying, struggled just as bad,” Heim explained.
Then, Heim’s crew chief, Bootie Barker, assured him that he used the team’s worst two sets of tires to kick off Sunday’s race, and that the No. 67 Toyota would come to life from there on out.
“He was right,” Heim stated. “I couldn’t believe it. We strapped another set of tires on, and we were just fine. Hit the wall a couple of times and maybe knocked some good into the car. I have no idea.”
Heim moved into the runner-up spot behind Reddick, his 23XI Racing teammate, with 11 laps to go after making contact with Carson Hocevar, which sent Hocevar spinning from the second position. After that incident with Hocevar, Heim went to work on trying to catch Reddick, the series point leader and one of the best drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series on road course layouts.
As Heim closed the gap on Reddick, he felt like Reddick was just toying with him, while conserving his tires, and he fully expected Reddick to hit the go button and pull away. It never happened.
“I was able to stick with him. I’m not really burning my stuff up,” Heim recalled. “Five [laps] to go came. Time to put some pressure on him, see if I could get him to make a mistake. Sure enough, he did.”
Heim surprised Reddick by firing his No. 67 Toyota to the inside of Reddick heading into the final turn of the course with three laps to go. The car stuck, and Heim held the position on Reddick. However, with two laps to go, Reddick would slide through the turn, collide with Heim, which sent Heim out of the groove.
Reddick, who could have chosen to rough up Heim for the win instead let off the gas, and allowed Heim to gather up his car. Reddick would then blow a tire, which allowed Heim to pursue the victory over the final two laps with no pressure from behind him.
“He doored me down there in five and gave me back to me. That’s something you don’t see every day. That’s a great teammate,” Heim said. “I don’t know. Just crazy. It feels like a dream. I hope I don’t wake up from this dream.”
With Reddick out of contention due to the tire issue, Bubba Wallace capped off the 23XI Racing sweep of the top-two positions, as he recorded a solid runner-up result, after coming back from two laps down following a detached wheel on Lap 20.
Kyle Larson led 11 laps in the race, which was second to only Ryan Blaney who led 12, and was able to bring his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet home with a strong third-place finish.
Zane Smith, who has really started to impress in recent weeks, collected another solid finish with a fourth-place result, driving the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford.
And A.J. Allmendinger, one of the favorites anytime the NASCAR Cup Series heads to a road course, finished fifth after nudging his way past Riley Herbst for the spot on the final lap.
Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, Herbst, Ryan Blaney, and Michael McDowell capped off the top-10 finishers in the Anduril 250 at San Diego.
With Reddick finishing 25th due to the tire issue with two laps remaining, Denny Hamlin was able to cut Reddick’s series point lead to just eight points after Hamlin finished 14th on Sunday.
Reddick has now seen his point lead diminish from 129 points to eight points in just a five-race span. With nine races remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, every point will be critical to Reddick and Hamlin as the regular season championship could be the difference for either driver when ‘The Chase’ begins.
You’re probably wondering to yourself, where did Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch, regarded as two of the favorites coming into the race, finish? Zilisch was credited with a 37th-place finish, and SVG was 38th after both drivers were knocked out of the event due to a hard crash 44 laps shy of the finish.
Austin Hill, who won Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race, slid up into Zilisch in Turn 1 on a Lap 32 restart, which sent them both hard into the outside wall. Van Gisbergen, who was right behind them, had nowhere to go and was collected hard in the crash as well.
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