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Corey Heim is currently the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points leader, even despite missing the last race at Gateway due to an illness. In the middle of all of that, Heim has won a Truck Series Rookie of the Year award, and he has been surrounded by racing for virtually his entire life.
According to his website, Heim is from Marietta, Georgia, and he began racing at five years old in quarter midgets. He was born on July 5, 2002.
During his early career, Heim ran legends cars at Atlanta Motor Speedway, winning track championships in the 2016 Young Lions Division and 2017 Thursday Thunder Pro Division. From there, Heim turned his attention to late models.
He ran full-time in the CARS Pro Late Model Tour in 2018, finishing second in the points and earning one win in the series at South Boston Speedway. Heim has also participated in other famous late model races such as the Slinger Nationals, Martinsville 300, Winchester 400, and the Snowball Derby. Heim finished as high as second in the Winchester 400 in 2019 and second in the Martinsville 300 in 2018, albeit in controversial fashion.
According to Race22, in the 2018 Martinsville 300, Heim took the lead in the closing laps over C.E. Falk. However, a caution came out where officials reverted to the previous lap scoring for the overtime restart. Falk beat Heim on the restart to take the win.
Regardless of that disappointment, bigger opportunities were on the horizon for Heim. First in the ARCA Menards Series.
In 2019, at the age of 16, Heim ran in 13 ARCA Menards Series races on short tracks for Chad Bryant with Paul Andrews as the crew chief. Andrews is famous in NASCAR circles for winning the 1992 Cup Series Championship with Alan Kulwicki.
In 2019, Heim was solid, but not spectacular. He finished all of the races, and finished in the top-five in eight of his 13 tries. However, he never won, nor was he really even close to winning.
In 2020, Heim went a different route, running full-time in the CARS Late Model Stock Tour. However, he also got an incredible part-time opportunity in the ARCA Menards Series with Billy Venturini and Andy Hillenburg. Heim ran seven ARCA races in 2020 with three in the ARCA Menards Series, three more in the ARCA Menards Series East, and one in the ARCA Menards Series West.
Heim had solid success winning a CARS Tour race at Hickory and finishing in the top-ten in each of his ARCA starts. Most notably, Heim won his first ARCA Menards Series race in the season finale at Kansas Speedway. The reward? A full-time opportunity for Billy Venturini in the ARCA Menards Series as Heim turned 18.
In 2021, Heim was nothing short of spectacular in ARCA winning six races with 15 top three finishes and never finishing worse than seventh. He would finish second in points to Ty Gibbs. Heim even made his Craftsman Truck Series debut racing for Kyle Busch Motorsports for three races.
Heim led two laps in his debut at Darlington before being caught up in an accident in the closing laps. Despite the rough finish and two more finishes outside of the top-ten, Heim was set for a bigger NASCAR National Touring Series opportunity.
In 2022, Heim dropped back to part-time in the ARCA Menards Series for Venturini, and Heim ran 16 races in the Craftsman Truck Series for Kyle Busch Motorsports. The results were up-and-down, but he continued to flash potential.
Heim won two races at Atlanta and Gateway and two poles as well at Gateway and Mid-Ohio. However, he also had six finishes outside of the top-20 including four DNFs. In ARCA, Heim continued to have success winning four poles and two more races including his second consecutive race at Daytona.
In October of 2022, Heim was announced that he would move to full-time Truck Series competition for the rebranded TRICON Garage, formerly David Gilliland Racing.
Heim has impressed so far this season. With only one DNF at Atlanta, Heim also got his third career Truck Series win at Martinsville, and he also took over the points lead following North Wilkesboro. He has nine top-10s so far in 11 starts.
Aside from that, Heim also made his Xfinity Series debut for Sam Hunt Racing. In his second start at Darlington, he took his first career top-ten. From here, it seems the sky could be the limit for Heim in his career.
