It’s Heim Time Again In A Charlotte Beatdown

Corey Heim celebrates in victory lane Friday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (Rusty Jarrett/NKP for Toyota Racing photo)

CONCORD, N.C. – The Corey Heim bullet train kept right on rolling Friday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Heim crushed the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series field to win the North Carolina Education Lottery 200, sweeping both stages and leading 98 of 134 laps en route to his fourth victory of the season.

The 22-year-old from Marietta, Ga., drove off following his last green flag pit stop, retaking the top spot for good with 18 laps left and taking the checkered flag 6.229 seconds clear of runner-up Ross Chastain.

It marked the largest margin of victory ever in a Truck Series race at Charlotte’s 1.5-mile quad-oval.

“It feels great,” said Heim of his dominant performance. “It feels like we’ve had a lot of opportunities to do that this year, really. Even last week [at North Wilkesboro Speedway], we didn’t win any stages, but I knew we were the best truck … and just being in position and getting cleaned out like that is tough. Just to be able to rebound, though, and not have anyone have an opportunity to take me out of it on that last restart felt pretty good.

“I can’t say enough about these guys. The pit crew executed amazingly,” he added. “My team gave me a great Tundra, and we really checked all the boxes tonight.

With his 15th career victory in his 75th start, Heim has put together a 20 percent win ratio over his five-year Truck Series career, tying three-time series titlist Matt Crafton on the all-time list in the process.

After the first two 30-lap stages ran without incident, a lap-71 melee exiting turn four was the only caution flag for cause in the second half, when Chandler Smith got loose on corner exit and spun across the nose of polesitter Gio Ruggiero’s Toyota.

As Smith spun down into the grass, suffering race-ending damage, defending series titlist Ty Majeski was also collected and saw his solid night fall into disarray as well.

All of that was behind Heim, however, who pitted for the final time with 30 to go and then waited patiently for the rest of the field’s service to cycle out in his favor.

Chastain’s Niece Motorsports No. 44 seemed to be the lone truck that could truly challenge Heim over the short run, but he didn’t have the long run pace to be able to stay with the eventual winner.

“That’s a heck of an effort for Niece Motorsports across the board,” Chastain said. “Kaden [Honeycutt, teammate] being right there on my back bumper was cool … and that’s what we look for is competition across all three trucks. For us, the Protect Your Melon Chevy was best in class. The [No.] 11 with Corey [Heim] and Scott [Zipadelli] is the best in the field right now and none of us had anything for them.

“The 7 [Kyle Busch], 38 [Smith], 34 [Layne Riggs] … we were all racing among each other and it was a heck of a race back there. I could hold on for a few laps, but we’ve got to make [the speed] last longer.”

Honeycutt posted a career-best third in a second Al Niece-owned entry, with Front Row Motorsports’ Riggs crossing fourth ahead of all-time series win leader Busch.

An eight-time Truck Series winner at Charlotte, Busch came down pit road for the final time running second to Heim, but a slow stop relegated him back three positions and he could never recover.

Grant Enfinger was sixth, followed by Matt Mills, who made it three Niece entries inside the top seven.

Daniel Hemric, Rajah Caruth, and Brandon Jones closed out the top 10 in a race where just 12 of the 34 starters finished on the lead lap.

Two-time champion Ben Rhodes cut a tire on lap 87 and had to make an unscheduled pit stop under green, but still fought back to finish 17th, just one lap behind at the finish.

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series heads next to Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway, where Christian Eckes led every lap one year ago to score the win and the mile-and-a-third concrete oval.

Broadcast coverage of the Rackley Roofing 200 is slated for Friday night, May 30 at 8 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.