After a long wait, Corey Heim finally made his first Cup Series appearance in 2025 with 23XI Racing, piloting the #67 Toyota. Starting from P28, he struggled to find his rhythm early, dropping to P32 by the end of Stage 1. However, he regrouped in Stage 2, working his way back to P23, which positioned him in the mid-pack in the final stage. And that’s exactly where the action unfolded.
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In the process, however, Heim made contact with a teammate — an incident that will no doubt be addressed during the team debrief. Despite the early challenges and the on-track misstep, the 22-year-old walked away satisfied with his overall result — P13 at the checkered flag.
Reflecting on his expectations and performance, he said in his post-race interview, “I think Stage 1 was certainly under my expectations. I think I’m better than that to run… But Stages 2 and 3 were where I was going for. It was just to keep calm and move forward, not do anything crazy, stupid, or anything. Yeah, I think we met those goals.”
He admitted it took time to settle in. “Took me a while to acclimate. But once we made an adjustment and I kind of settled in, it was, I feel like, we were so good,” he said. In fact, with more experience under his belt, he felt the #67 could have cracked the top-10. The main hurdle early on was finding comfort in the car.
.@CoreyHeim_ finishes 13th at finish in his 2025 Cup debut and @JHNemechek earns back to back top 10s.
Hear from them: pic.twitter.com/gm6Md9oc7F
— Frontstretch (@Frontstretch) May 11, 2025
At the start, he said the car was tight, but he held back, not wanting to end his race five laps in. Once the setup came to him, he was able to drive with more confidence.
But there was another wrench waiting for him with 55 laps remaining. Battling for 20th, Heim made contact with Justin Haley, triggering a chain reaction. Haley was sent into Erik Jones, and Bubba Wallace, who was having a tough points day already, got clipped and slammed into the outside wall. The incident dropped Wallace to a P33 finish, compounding an already frustrating afternoon for the #23 team.
The wreck carried weight, given the stakes for Wallace and the team. Offering his perspective, Heim said, “I feel like I was kind of just squeezed there.” He explained that he had been trying to get back to the bottom and spotted the #42 inside.
Seeing John Hunter Nemechek in close quarters, Heim said he flinched and, in doing so, unintentionally triggered the wreck. “I’d like to think I didn’t do anything wrong,” he concluded, even though he hadn’t reviewed the footage yet.
