Corey Heim of TRICON Garage crosses the finish line to win Saturday’s Toyota 200 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway. Photo credit: World Wide Technology Raceway.
TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim earns his fourth win of the season and second at World Wide Technology Raceway.
MADISON, Ill. (June 1, 2024) – TRICON Garage driver Corey Heim remained perfect at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Heim collected his second NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series win in as many starts at the 1.25-mile oval, leading a race-high 65 laps in his No. 11 Toyota for a series-leading fourth win of the season. The 21-year-old Georgia native won in his inaugural visit in 2022 with Kyle Busch Motorsports, but missed last season’s event due to illness.
“I’m just on top of the world right now,” Heim said. “We’ve got such a great race team and such a long season ahead. We’re the team to beat right now. I feel like the last five weeks we should have won them all.
“Today, we came and we probably didn’t have the best truck, by far, by any means. We were definitely top three. To have our pit crew step up like that and fix their mistakes from the past couple weeks is a big statement from those guys.”
The win was Heim’s fourth in the last eight races – the others came at Circuit of The Americas, Kansas and North Wilkesboro – but early on it was shaping up to be a great race for polesitter Ty Majeski after an approximate three-hour rain delay.
The ThorSport Racing driver, chasing his first win of the season, dominated the first stage by leading 33 of the 35 laps. He then took Stage 2 honors as well. But it was Heim who began to emerge as the favorite in the third and final stage after not leading a lap in the first two.
Heim enjoyed a 38-lap stint at the point from Laps 78-115 with Majeski in tow. Majeski would lead his only lap of the final stage on the next lap when Heim pitted and then would do the same himself. It was setting up to be a potential shootout between the two and Majeski’s best opportunity came on a restart following a caution with 23 laps to go. Majeski closed the gap to .795 of a second with 15 laps to go. Heim, however, remained in control as Majeski began to fade and also was dealing with pressure from Christian Eckes of McAnally Hilgemann Racing and Nick Sanchez of Rev Racing.
Eckes moved to second with nine to go, but never challenged Heim and finished 1.854 seconds back in second. Sanchez took third, Majeski fourth and rookie Layne Riggs rounded out the top five.
World Wide Technology Raceway was the second leg of the three-race Triple Truck Challenge. Sanchez won the first leg last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway for a $50,000 bonus and Heim pocketed the same amount for his victory. Should either driver win the final leg of “The Trip,” they will earn a $150,000 bonus for winning two of the three designated races.
The weekend culminates Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway with the NASCAR Cup Series Enjoy Illinois 300 beginning at 2:30 p.m. CT (TV: FS1, Radio: MRN, SiriusXM, WNOI 103.9 FM locally).
For more information on the NASCAR race weekend, please visit www.wwtraceway.com.
