Corey Heim Strikes Again for North Wilkesboro Victory

Corey Heim doing his “Heim-Time” celebration after winning at North Wilkesboro. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)

NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — After a rainy week at North Wilkesboro Speedway, the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series completed the Wright Brand 250 on Sunday morning. The race began on Saturday afternoon but downpours caused the race to be red-flagged for over 21 hours.

Even though the rain kept racing away for a day, it couldn’t keep Corey Heim away as he found his way to the front late to claim the victory, the third in 2024.

“I can’t say enough about these TRICON Garage guys,” Heim said. “What a truck, what a weekend. I knew we had potential from practice and we put it all together and executed great today.”

Stage 3 is when Heim’s truck became alive and made his way to the front. On Lap 147, Heim restarted in seventh place. He made it up to the second position when a caution came out by Lap 177.

This put Heim on the front row against Jake Garcia for the Lap 186 restart, who led the previous 40 laps. Heim cleared Garcia on the bottom going into Turn 3 to take the lead and didn’t give it back.

“Obviously, this truck was phenomenal,” said Heim. “Huge thank you to TRICON Garage and Toyota Racing for everything. Our Safelite Tundra TRD Pro was so good today.”

Corey Heim doing a burnout after winning at North Wilkesboro. (Photo: Phil Cavali | The Podium Finish)

Heim led a race-high 66 laps and collected a total of 49 points on the day to what hebelieves is a statement win.

“It should be three in a row for us,” Heim said post-race. “We led every lap last week before we got wrecked. These trucks week in and week out were so good and just can’t do it without that speed.”

Veteran Grant Enfinger brought home a second-place finish today, the first top-five of the season for the No. 9 team.

“Very, very proud of this truck,” Enfinger said. “Proud of our pit crew all year long. Finally, we have a little bit of a result to show for it.”

“We haven’t been performing to our ability or our standards. I feel like last week at Darlington was the turning point in our season. I’m standing by that.”

Rookie Layne Riggs also scored his first top-five of the season, finishing third. This was the best finish for Riggs since Bristol when he finished in 10th place in what has been a tough rookie campaign for the 22-year-old.

“We really needed this run today,” Riggs said. “We’ve really been in a drought and we just needed a good, solid finish for once.”

After a tough opening stage, Riggs found his groove, finishing fifth in Stage 2 and holding on for a third-place finish.

“We had a third or fourth place truck and we finished third and that’s what we needed to do,” said Riggs. “We really, really deserved this finish, so it’s a great confidence-booster for us.”

Corey Heim (11) battling Jake Garcia (13) for the lead at North Wilkesboro. (Photo: Phil Cavali | The Podium Finish)

The other big story from the day was from the fourth-place finisher, Brenden “Butterbean” Queen. After receiving a late speeding penalty, Queen restarted in 26th place on Lap 124 and with the help of some cautions and good pace came back to finish in the top five in his series debut.

“Oh man, I just can’t believe it,” Queen said. “We got that speeding penalty and I thought I was conservative on the lights and it just got us – rookie mistake.”

“Man, this is what I worked for my whole life and never knew if I’d get this opportunity,” said Queen “First off, huge thanks to TRICON Garage, everybody at Toyota, TRD, TPC (Toyota Performance Center) for giving me this chance. TRICON Garage brought a fast, fast Best Company Toyota Tundra and I was just lucky to drive it.”

NASCAR XFINITY Series regular Sammy Smith rounded out the top five driving for Spire Motorsports in the second of four scheduled starts in the No. 7 truck. Smith overcame a penalty on Lap 1 for changing lanes before the start/finish line on the opening start of the race to score a fifth-place finish.

“It was a good day to come back and finish fifth,” Smith told Bob Pockrass after the race. “I put ourselves a little behind there, just made a mistake. Good comeback, just thanks to everyone at Spire, Pilot Flying J, TMC and everyone who helped get me here today, it was a lot of fun.”

The top 10 was rounded out by Christian Eckes, who led 62 laps and held onto the points lead, Nick Sanchez, Tyler Ankrum, Daniel Dye and Stewart Friesen.

Stage 1 Top 10 Results

1. Ty Majeski
2. Ben Rhodes
3. Rajah Caruth
4. Taylor Gray
5. Corey Heim
6. Ty Dillon
7. Christian Eckes
8. Tanner Gray
9. Jack Wood
10. Tyler Anrkum

Stage 2 Top 10 Results

1. Tyler Ankrum
2. Jake Garcia
3. Stewart Friesen
4. Jack Wood
5. Layne Riggs
6. Ben Rhodes
7. Christian Eckes
8. Corey Heim
9. Daniel Dye
10. Grant Enfinger

Wright Brand 250 at North Wilkesboro Speedway Results