Heim Speeds To Second Straight Truck Pole At Martinsville

Corey Heim celebrates his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series pole at Martinsville Speedway. (Scotte Sprinkle/Race Face Digital photo)

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series continues to be Corey Heim’s playground this year, and he proved it again in Kennametal Pole Qualifying Friday at Martinsville Speedway.

Already with two wins in the season’s first four races, Heim added a second straight pole to his tally with a lap of 19.654 seconds (96.347 mph) in the No. 11 Mobil 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for TRICON Garage.

It’s Heim’s ninth career Truck Series pole and first at the half-mile paperclip. He’ll chase his second spring win in three years at the track under the lights during the Boys & Girls Club of the Blue Ridge 200.

“It’s going to be tough,” Heim said of his chances to convert the pole position into a victory. “Our fire-off speed was really good in practice, and of course we backed that up in qualifying too, but it’s always tough here and tough to predict what the conditions will be (come race time). It’s going to be kind of a weird temperature tonight, where the track might take rubber or it might not, and that affects the truck balance as the race goes on.

“I’m really grateful for my TRICON guys; the Mobil 1 Tundra was really good there, and this is better than I’ve felt here in the past few years, so I’m looking forward to the race.”

Joining Heim on the front row is defending Truck Series champion Ty Majeski, who put the No. 98 Soda Sense Ford F-150 second overall with a time of 19.711 seconds (96.068 mph).

He’s chasing the first win of his title defense and the first trophy of the season for ThorSport Racing as a whole.

Niece Motorsports’ Kaden Honeycutt starts third alongside Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith, with Daniel Hemric’s McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet making it five different teams in the top five spots on the grid.

Tanner Gray, Layne Riggs, Jake Garcia, Lawless Alan, and Rajah Caruth closed the top 10 in qualifying.

Notables starting deeper in the lineup include Connor Mosack (11th), two-time Daytona 500 winner and Cup Series star William Byron (13th), Matt Crafton (14th), rookie sensation Corey Day (15th), Ben Rhodes (20th), and Tyler Ankrum (24th).

Luke Baldwin, the son of former Cup Series team owner Tommy Baldwin Jr., led practice ahead of his Truck Series debut but only qualified 27th in a fifth ThorSport entry.

With just 35 drivers entered, no one missed the starting field for the fifth race on the calendar.

Broadcast coverage of Friday night’s Boys & Girls Club of the Blue Ridge 200 is slated for 7:30 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.