{"id":226833,"date":"2025-09-14T19:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T19:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/226833\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T19:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T19:05:11","slug":"nascar-sensation-just-repeated-what-fans-mistakenly-thought-was-a-fluke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/226833\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR sensation just repeated what fans mistakenly thought was a fluke"},"content":{"rendered":"

23XI Racing development driver Corey Heim, who competes full-time for Tricon Garage in the NASCAR Truck Series and is the points leader with a series-high eight wins<\/a>, made his first Cup Series start of the 2025 season back in mid-May at Kansas Speedway.<\/p>\n

Driving the No. 67 Toyota for the Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan-owned team, he beat each of the team’s three full-time drivers. He finished in 13th place while Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, two former Kansas winners, placed 17th and 33rd, respectively.<\/p>\n

Riley Herbst, who has struggled massively in his rookie season and is a driver whom many fans believe Heim should replace full-time, finished 27th.<\/p>\n

Corey Heim repeats, proves Kansas not a fluke<\/p>\n

Heim has endured a rough stretch in his limited Cup time since, crashing out at Nashville Superspeedway in June and becoming the first driver to fail for a non-Daytona 500 Cup race since 2018 after a mistake during qualifying on the streets of Chicago in July. He returned and kept it clean and finished in 29th at Richmond Raceway in August.<\/p>\n

It was not initially expected that he would compete this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, but 23XI Racing added him to the entry list and he did<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a race characterized by incredible levels of Goodyear tire wear and degradation, Heim was simply sensational, driving from 38th to sixth<\/a>, and once again finishing ahead of his three 23XI Racing teammates.<\/p>\n

Reddick was 15th, Herbst was 18th, and Wallace was 34th after a wreck.<\/p>\n

One thing is clear: Kansas was no fluke, and Heim is the real deal.<\/p>\n

The question is when 23XI Racing will given him a full-time Cup Series opportunity, because he’s not the kind of driver they can afford to let get away. <\/p>\n

Heim has been competing at the Truck level for more than three years and is already up to seventh on the all-time wins list. It doesn’t appear that he will replace Herbst in 2026, but should he be promoted to the Xfinity Series full-time? And would that set him up for a full-time Cup promotion in the No. 35 Toyota in 2027?<\/p>\n

That’s certainly what a lot of fans are hoping for, and after literally beating all three of the full-time 23XI Racing drivers in two of his four Cup Series starts this season, it sure isn’t hard to see why. He does not currently have any more Cup starts lined up for 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"23XI Racing development driver Corey Heim, who competes full-time for Tricon Garage in the NASCAR Truck Series and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":226834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-226833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115204215594576555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}