It’s been a dominant regular season for Corey Heim. With seven wins, five more than any other active driver, he wrapped up the regular season championship with a monumental 190-point advantage courtesy of a final win at Richmond Raceway.
Unlike many of Heim’s wins, where he dominated the race, he faced stiff competition in Friday night’s eero 250 from Ty Majeski. While Heim started on the pole, Majeski quickly grabbed the lead by lap 18 of 250 and went on to win Stage 1 and Stage 2.
It all soured for Majeski, though, when he tried to pass his lap-down teammate Matt Crafton on the outside. Crafton ran over oil on the track and his truck darted up into Majeski’s, sending both spinning around. The incident only cost Majeski one spot, testament to his lead by the time the caution flag flew, but it did fundamentally change the handling of his truck.
After restarting fifth with 35 laps to go, Heim took advantage of a chaotic restart where Corey Lajoie made contact with Ty Majeski to get around that pair. He despatched second-place Gio Ruggiero in a five-lap side-by-side battle and was able to quickly get by leader Sammy Smith with twenty laps to go, never looking back from there.
“Yeah, it is awesome,” Heim admitted of the win. He’s struggled at Richmond in the past so getting the win at the track was especially satisfactory.
“We’ve carved on this one for a while. We’ve been in position for a lot of these this year – I feel like we were the best truck at Martinsville and Wilkesboro, but I felt like they got away from us,” he said. “We kind of got this one back.
“I didn’t feel like we were the best truck tonight. The 98 [of Majeski] was obviously really stout, but he had a run-in and got some damage, so being able to be there when it counted was the first goal, and we were. Just was able to execute it from there.”
The regular season championship confers 15 bonus Playoff points. That, combined with his Playoff points from wins and stage wins, means Heim enters the Playoffs with 65 points in the bank before any racing even begins. Layne Riggs, entering second, is already 39 points back.
For Ty Majeski, it was a disappointing end to a strong chance to defend his win in this race last year. Majeski was able to drive back to second after losing position on that final restart, but he never had enough to reel in Heim in the closing laps.
Majeski explained that the contact and spin, while it wasn’t terminal, did damage his truck and hurt his handling just enough to take away his dominant speed.
“I think it was the difference, that’s a pretty good lick here on my right rear. Obviously good for aero, but a little bit too good and just threw my balance off too much. I knew it right when I fired off, I was like, ‘man, this thing is a lot tighter than what I had all night long.’
“Just wasn’t our night. I thought we did everything right, executed well. My weakness was restarts, I couldn’t get going, but it paid off on the long runs and I was able to get Corey after five or ten laps each run.
“Yeah, disappointed, but all-in-all a good night.”
Regardless of the disappointment, the stat sheet still shows a win and a second place for the last two years, impressive results by any measure. Majeski explained that Richmond suits his driving style.
“This place just rewards discipline, and I feel like as a short track racer with all the super late model races I have under my belt, this place rewards that kind of racing. We don’t go to a lot of places on the Truck schedule that are like this, that reward consistency.”
As the final race of the regular season, the race also set the Playoff grid. There were four spots available on points, but three of those were either locks ahead of the race or early on with a few stage points. The battle on the track was for that one final spot.
Jake Garcia entered with an eleven-point advantage, with two-time series champion Ben Rhodes eleven points behind him and rookie driver Gio Ruggiero 21 points behind.
In the end, it was Garcia who triumphed, finishing seventh, sandwiched between Ruggiero in sixth and Rhodes in eighth. Garcia ran a clean race, picking up two points in Stage 1 and nine in Stage 2, more than either of the drivers he was battling, and had a strong enough finish to earn the final transfer.
Garcia explained that he had the points position in his ear throughout the race, being updated on what he needed to do to secure the spot.
“I felt like I knew what the situation was the whole time,” Garcia explained. “Just knowing where those two guys were around me and what their points situation was, what the points were. So I understood it.”
Both Ruggiero and Rhodes had to overcome problems to finish where they did. Ruggiero had problems in practice that meant he was unable to qualify and had to start from the rear and drive through the field. Ben Rhodes missed his pit box at the Stage 1 break and had to restart from the tail of the field but still managed to drive back to seventh by the end of Stage 2. Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough to overcome the points deficit for either.
The Craftsman Truck Series returns at Darlington Raceway for the Playoff opener on Saturday, August 30th. It is the first race of three races in the Playoffs Round of 10, after which two drivers will be eliminated.
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