Corey Heim didn’t just win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He owned the place. From pole to the finish line, the No. 11 Toyota looked less like a Craftsman Truck and more like a guided missile. Heim swept both stages, led 124 of 175 laps, and crossed the line with nearly a full second to spare over Chandler Smith in Saturday’s Team EJP 175.
If it looked easy, that’s because it was.
The victory was Heim’s ninth of the season, which ties Greg Biffle’s record for most wins in a single year. Nine. In one season. It’s the sort of number that makes you wonder if the rest of the field has been racing on three wheels while Heim’s been using cheat codes.
“It means the world to me,” Heim said. “Looking back five years ago in my career if I could’ve ever imagined that I was first of all even in the Truck Series, but nonetheless being able to compete or tie a record.”
The man left in tears was Chandler Smith. He needed to win to advance in the playoffs, and for a while it looked like he might have the speed to do it. He stalked Heim in the closing laps, closing the gap, waiting for that perfect moment to deliver a well-timed nudge. But the opportunity never came. Heim kept the door slammed shut, and Smith’s playoff run came to a screeching halt, eliminated alongside Jake Garcia, who finished 16th.
“I feel like it’s a little bittersweet, to be honest with you,” Smith said. “I had a fast truck that was capable of winning. I started hauling butt there at the end and running down the 11, but it wasn’t in the Lord’s Will today, honestly. I pulled everybody together before the race. We prayed together and I wanted to let them know that I’m proud of them no matter the outcome today.”
For those still breathing playoff air, the Round of 8 now includes Heim, Layne Riggs, Ty Majeski, Grant Enfinger, Kaden Honeycutt, Rajah Caruth, Tyler Ankrum, and Daniel Hemric. They’ll roll into the Charlotte Roval on October 3, which in typical NASCAR fashion is a road course designed to frustrate, infuriate, and maybe even break a few trucks in half.
The path to Heim’s record-tying win wasn’t exactly a Sunday drive. Tanner Gray spun on lap one, collected Connor Mosack, and turned the opening moments into a yard sale. Brent Crews and Ben Rhodes got swept up in that one too, because why not? Later, Jayson Alexander and Caleb Costner decided that four-wide into Turn 1 was a clever idea. It wasn’t. Daniel Hemric and Rajah Caruth paid the price with bent sheet metal and a date with the outside wall.
Caution flags flew all afternoon like beer cups at Talladega. Connor Jones and Christian Eckes went into the wall after a restart. Derek White somehow managed to crash himself out from 29th on lap 50, which takes a special kind of talent. Spencer Boyd and Tyler Tomassi collided on lap 127, and at one point Rhodes, Toni Breidinger, and Matt Crafton all found themselves stacked together in a lap 133 pile-up. The yellow flag spent so much time waving it should’ve earned its own paycheck.
And yet, through all of it, Heim was untouchable. Every restart, every shuffle, every wreck behind him—he simply kept retaking the lead, as if the rest of the field was auditioning for a supporting role in his highlight reel. Gio Ruggiero and Andrés Pérez briefly had their moment at the front, but Heim snatched it right back with the casual confidence of a man reclaiming his TV remote.
By the time the laps wound down, it was Heim versus Smith. Smith threw everything he had at him, desperate for a win that would keep his season alive. But this was Heim’s day, and everyone knew it. He crossed the line first, Smith crossed the line out of the playoffs, and somewhere Greg Biffle probably raised an eyebrow at his record now being under siege.
If you’re counting, Corey Heim has turned the 2025 Truck Series season into the Corey Heim Invitational. Nine wins, a place in the Round of 8, and the sort of dominance that makes you wonder if anyone can stop him. The series heads to Charlotte on October 3. Unless someone finds a way to build a truck faster than Heim’s Toyota, the rest of the grid may just be fighting for scraps.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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