Not seeing Corey Heim win Friday night would’ve been about as wrong as serving decaf coffee at a truck stop. For most of the race, Heim looked every bit the man in charge — calm, calculated, surgical.
Until he wasn’t.
In the final laps, chaos crashed the party like someone ordering a salad at a Texas Roadhouse. What followed was double overtime, a seven-wide scramble, and a slugfest with Ty Majeski that’ll be replayed in NASCAR highlight reels for decades. When the smoke cleared, Heim stood tall — a 12th win in the 2025 season, and the title of NASCAR Truck Series Champion.
Stage One went to, who else, Heim. He started sixth, sidestepped the opening-lap carnage when Dawson Sutton and Daniel Hemric tangled, and began his steady march forward. Playoff contender Kaden Honeycutt jumped the start, got slapped with a penalty, and had to start his race in the back. It didn’t matter. By Lap 21, Heim had the lead, wrapped up his 22nd stage win of the season, and broke Mike Skinner’s 1996 record for most laps led in a single year. Honeycutt, for his part, muscled back to seventh by the end of the stage.
Rajah Caruth won the race off pit road, but Heim was having none of it — he reclaimed the lead before the next lap was in the books. By Lap 68, he was checking out, though reigning champion Ty Majeski kept him honest. It was the kind of duel you could feel in your chest. Heim never seemed hurried, keeping a cushion just over a second, and when it mattered, he simply turned the dial. In the closing laps of Stage Two, he widened the gap past two seconds and took yet another stage sweep of the season as if it were scripted.
But even the cleanest scripts get messy. A slick pit box during the Stage Two stops cost Heim the lead — again — handing it to Majeski. That lasted roughly one green-flag lap. By Lap 98, Heim was back where he belonged.
A brief spin by Clayton Green on Lap 111 slowed the field, caused by a rear-end failure on Mason Maggio’s Ford that looked more dramatic than it was. All four championship contenders stayed out, knowing track position was worth more than fresh rubber. Then came the late-race insanity.
With 33 laps left, the tension was thicker than Daytona humidity. Layne Riggs, sent to the rear earlier despite winning the pole, was slicing his way through the field. Then, the inevitable: a spectacular crash in Turn 3 when Andres Perez bounced off both walls and collected Gio Ruggiero, Ben Rhodes, and Bayley Curry. Perez’s truck even got airborne. NASCAR threw the red flag for cleanup — eight minutes that felt like an eternity.
When the green returned, it was 28 laps to settle a championship. Majeski tried to rattle Heim, but Heim simply turned his wheel, took the lead back, and dared anyone to stop him. Riggs — running on fresher tires — took the top spot with 26 to go. With 17 remaining, it was Riggs out front, Heim stalking him, and Majeski closing fast, all while the title hung in the balance.
Then, with five to go, Heim began his final hunt. He reeled in Riggs and was about to finish the job when Connor Mosack’s wounded truck finally gave up a tire, smacked the wall, and brought out a caution — setting up one of the most electrifying double-overtime finishes in Truck, scratch that, NASCAR history.
The leaders pitted. Majeski gambled with two tires as did others, Heim took four and restarted 10th. The first overtime attempt looked like rush hour on I-85 — seven-wide, no patience, no mercy. Heim’s fresh tires dug in, Majeski clawed ahead, and chaos erupted again just before the line, forcing a second overtime.
One more restart. One more chance. Heim dove low — his preferred hunting ground — and powered past Majeski out of Turn 2. No more drama. No more chaos. Just the pure inevitability of a driver at the peak of his powers.
Heim took the checkered flag by nearly a full second (.993), locking up his 12th win of the season and the 2025 NASCAR Truck Series Championship.
After climbing out, Heim looked almost relieved more than triumphant. “I just am so grateful to be where I’m at,” he said. “So thankful for TRICON Garage, Toyota taking a chance on me years ago, Safelite, Mobil 1, Yahoo, Celsius — everybody who’s been part of this. I’ve been so stressed out ever since the Roval. I’ve been terrible to talk to as a person, so this is just such a relief.”
Heim didn’t just sound relieved — he sounded defiant. When asked about that wild, seven-wide restart, he smiled. “I don’t care if I was on hundred-lap tires, nobody was going to beat me tonight,” he said. “It wasn’t going to happen. I just drove it in deep until I couldn’t anymore. Drove away with it. It’s ‘Heim Time’ tonight, for sure.”
For Ty Majeski, it was a night of grit, not glory. The defending champ came up one spot short, but not without pride. “We had a pretty rough stretch earlier this year,” Majeski said. “We looked in the mirror and said, ‘Hey, we’re champions, we can turn this thing around.’ We did. We put on a streak of 12 straight top-tens, nine of them top-fives. I thought we were poised to do something special tonight, but the 11 was just too strong.”
Honeycutt, Riggs, and Caruth rounded out the top five, but this night belonged to Heim — the man who made dominance look deceptively easy and turned every “what if” into “of course he did.”
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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