For the seventh week of the 2025 NASCAR schedule, the three national series headed to one of the oldest tracks on the circuit: Martinsville Speedway. On Friday night, it was the truckers of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series who tried their hands at the legendary paperclip. The field itself was a tale of different levels of experience. Eleven of the drivers were visiting the legendary short track for the first time. Meanwhile, the veterans were looking to show some of the youngsters how it’s done. So, with that in mind, here are the 3 biggest things to take away from Truck Night in America at Martinsville Speedway!
Daniel Hemric has had a pretty unusual career in NASCAR. He ran full-time for Richard Childress Racing in 2019, driving their number 8 car. For 2020, he dropped down to the Xfinity Series, driving part-time for JR Motorsports. He then ran a single full-time season in the JGR number 18 in the Xfinity Series. With this team, he won the 2021 Xfinity Series title and subsequently lost his ride. Then he ran a number of years for Kaulig in both the Xfinity and Cup Series. Now, though, he’s back full-time in the truck series with one thing on his mind: he wants to win. He did just that here tonight.
Daniel Hemric managed to win this race, his first in the series, by driving like a veteran. He kept his nose clean and put himself in position to capitalize on the mistakes of others. With this win, Hemric locks himself into the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs!
I know I’ve said it before but I’m going to say it again because I believe it to be true: it’s HeimTime all year long for 2025. It being his third full-time season on the Craftsman Truck Series (sometimes to his own frustration) this looks like it really could be his year to win it all. Last year, he won a bulk of the races but had a stark challenger in Christain Eckes. So far this year, it appears that Corey Heim is head and shoulders above the rest of his competition. Only four races into the 2025 season, Heim has two wins. He was on track to win last week at Homestead before a mechanical issue disrupted his pace while leading. This handed over the race win to Kyle Larson. Had that not happened, Corey Heim could have been sitting with 3 wins out of 4 races. That’s dominance like we haven’t seen in any series in a very long time.
Tonight, Heim led all of the opening stage on his way to his third Martinsville stage win. He followed that up by sweeping the stages, showcasing his stranglehold over the competition with sheer dominance. During the Stage 2 break, Heim pitted, relinquishing the lead. At the beginning of the final stage, he was able to quickly work his way back up to the front, regaining the first position.
Alas, for the second week in a row, Corey Heim’s luck ran out when it mattered most. After making contact with Kaden Honeycutt, the 11 Tricon truck suffered a flat left rear tire. He spun around going into Turn 1. After pitting, he was able to rally back late to earn a 6th place finish. But the result does not show the full picture of just how dominant he was here tonight.
In the last several years, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series was mostly seen as an extension of the ARCA Menards Series. That is to say that there were a lot of inexperienced drivers and a ton of avoidable and senseless wrecks. It hasn’t been that way thus far in 2025. In the five races we’ve seen so far this year, wrecks have been down on average. Prior to tonight, the average green flag run at Martinsville for the Truckers was around 10 laps. However, the first two stages of tonight’s race were relatively clean. There were a couple of single-truck incidents early on, but nobody received major damage, and everyone was able to continue.
It’s something that’s interesting to think about. Why is the NASCAR Truck Series so tame this year compared to years past? Does it have something to do with the drivers who graduated to other series over the last two years? Were they the problem? Either way, with 11 rookies in this race tonight, one might expect there to be a lot of cautions but there really weren’t. That’s nice to see.
One of the Truck Series drivers who has made a lot of noise in recent years is actor-turned racer, Frankie Muniz. In 2023, Muniz raced fulltime in the ARCA Menards Series. He ran decently enough, scoring 10 top-10 finishes. Granted, there wasn’t a whole lot of legitimate competition in the field. His best finish in the number 30 ride was a 5th place at Michigan. For 2024, Muniz dropped back down to part-time, competing in a couple of ARCA races and a handful of truck and Xfinity Races as well. His best finish in the Xfinity Series was 30th, which he achieved at Phoenix. But being a part-timer wasn’t scratching his racing itch. For the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, the Hollywood star returned to full-time racing…and it has been a struggle so far.
Yes, he finished 10th at Daytona. But his finishes since then have been abysmal with a 26th at Atlanta and a pair of 24th place finishes at Las Vegas and Homestead. Tonight, he started the race in the back and ran around 28th to 32nd for much of the race. With a reboot of Malcom in the Middle on the horizon, it makes fans wonder if he is, indeed, a NASCAR Bust. Tonight, he finished in the 31st position.
That does it for our coverage of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville! How are you feeling about that one, race fans? Are you brokenhearted for Corey Heim? Are you elated for Daniel Hemric? Let us know what you’re thinking! And be sure to come back here tomorrow for our continued coverage of NASCAR from the paperclip with the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
