Is it Heim Time?

Last night Corey Heim dominated the Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway leading over half the laps for his second win of the season. This result also means that he has yet to finish outside of the top 10 and only has two finishes outside of the podium in 8 races this season. Dominating over a Cup Series rookie despite problems with his digital dash at just 21 years old has people wondering, is Corey Heim really that good?

Just a few years ago in 2021 Heim was competing for the ARCA championship against Ty Gibbs. Gibbs has been touted as one of the best young prospects in a long time. While Gibbs ended up winning the championship in the end, Heim was the only one close to matching him. Finishing just 37 points behind with more top 10's, Heim was put on everyone's radar with this performance. Gibbs went on to win the Xfinity series championship and fill in half the season for Kurt Busch the next year and getting a full time Cup ride in 2023.

Corey spent 2022 splitting time between the Truck Series and ARCA. On the ARCA side he had only 7 starts, finishing outside the top 10 only once while compiling two more wins. In the Truck Series Heim was driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports. With this team he won the second race of the season, only his 5th start in the series, at Atlanta. He would win one more race for the rest of the season, but without counting crashes or parts failures, he didn't finish outside the top 10 a single time.

This momentum only followed him into 2023. Although KBM closed it's shop, Heim was able to find a ride with Tricon, a team owned by NASCAR veteran David Gilliland. In this season he was tied with Grant Enfinger for the 3rd most wins for the season with three and had only three finishes outside of the top 10 with those being from wrecking out, Bristol dirt, and getting spun for the championship. Despite being the best driver with the best average finish by a whopping 2.2 positions, Heim wasn't able to win the championship as he was spun by Carson Hocevar who was also in the Final 4 with 31 laps to go. At this time Heim was the championship leader and running in 6th.

Between 2023 and 2024, Heim has made 10 starts in the Xfinity Series as well for Sam Hunt Racing. In 5 years the team has only had 8 top 5's and 22 top 10's. Despite the team not being one of the best and Heim's inexperience, he's contributed one top 5 and two top 10s. Heim was also chosen to take over the 43 for Erik Jones in the Cup Series while Jones is out with injury. In his first start he finished 25th. For reference, Erik Jones' average finish with this same team last year was 20th. 

Heim has dominated the Trucks with his consistency, been mentored by Cup Series veterans, and shown to not only be able to compete with a prospect that gets a lot of comparisons to Kyle Busch, but also get similar results to a driver who has been in Cup for seven years and won three races all at just 21 years old. So once again we ask; Is Corey Heim really that good? To me, he absolutely is.