Corey Heim drives to a solid finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Christopher Vargas | The Podium Finish)
LAS VEGAS — Corey Heim left Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a solid third place finish Friday night following the Victoria’s Voice Foundation 200 presented by Westgate Resorts.
Following a second place finish at Daytona International Speedway and a third place finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Heim and the No. 11 team showed more of the same speed this weekend at Las Vegas. Qualifying was not quite as fast for the 21-year-old, with him qualifying to start the race from the 25th position.
However, Heim quickly showed he would still be a contender to win Las Vegas working his way up to 16th in only three laps. The Marietta, Georgia, native was up to ninth place by Lap 12 of the race and driving to a fifth place Stage 1 finish. At the end of Stage 2, Heim had passed Rajah Caruth on Lap 58 second place stage finish, trailing Ty Majeski in the No. 98.
On Lap 82 of the 134 lap race, Heim took the lead Nick Sanchez, got passed by Ty Majeski on Lap 86 then drove back to the lead on Lap 90. Heim was able to maintain the lead until he had a 22 second green flag pit stop on Lap 104, dropping back to sixth when all pit stops had been completed.
After leading a total of 18 laps, the TRICON Garage driver worked his way back up to third place by the end of the race. Following the race, Heim spoke about the variables that decided who would go to victory lane.
“Yeah, there was a bunch we could’ve cleaned up overall, including myself,” Heim said. “I was slow coming out (of the pits) on the green flag cycle, and when I came out, I was racing the 18 (Tyler Antrum) for three or four laps, and he slowed us down a bunch. But, huge congratulations to Rajah (Caruth). He earned every bit of that tonight. He drove his butt off and was really clean all night, put himself in position and won the race.”
“I think there were a lot of variables. I made some mistakes on the cycle there. I could have executed a lot better there on pit road, and when I got back out there, I was messing with the 18 too much. Congrats to Rajah, and a huge thank you to TRICON Garage and Toyota Racing for everything they do.”
Starting the season with the same consistency that resulted in a Championship 4 berth at Phoenix, Heim knows his time will come to win a race in 2024.
“We had a rocket ship tonight and I feel like if we executed as a whole team, including me, I feel like we would have been in Victory Lane tonight,” Heim said. “It happens, and we will use it as motivation for the team. Huge thank you to them, Toyota and Safelite.”
