The Pacific time zone became Heim Time Sunday.
For most of the weekend, though, it looked like it belonged to Shane van Gisbergen.
The San Diego Street Course had turned into a familiar sight: van Gisbergen on pole, van Gisbergen controlling the early stages and everyone else trying to figure out whether they were racing him or simply participating in one of his increasingly frequent road-course exhibitions. There was a growing sense that unless something unusual happened, the rest of the field was fighting for second.
Then Sunday remembered it was NASCAR.
Instead of another van Gisbergen masterclass, the afternoon turned into Corey Heim’s coming out party. The 23-year-old, running only a part-time Cup Series schedule this season, emerged from the middle of the pack, survived the only real outbreak of chaos all afternoon and drove away with one of the most surprising victories of the year at Naval Base Coronado.
Which made the result even stranger because Heim didn’t spend the early part of the race looking like a future winner.
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“We started the race… I think we started 13th. We fell straight back to 20th,” Heim said afterward. “Then put on our scuffs from qualifying, struggled just as bad.”
That’s usually where these stories quietly fade into a respectable finish and a lesson learned. But crew chief Bootie Barker apparently saw something nobody else did.
“Bootie kept telling me these were our worst two sets of tire, we were going to be fine,” Heim said. “He was right.”
As Heim settled in, the race itself kept evolving. Ryan Blaney looked like the early favorite, winning Stage 1 and leading a race-high 12 laps. Fuel strategy shuffled the order and created a rotating cast of contenders with Ryan Preece taking Stage 2 while Kyle Larson, Carson Hocevar and Connor Zilisch all took turns up front. Unlike the support races leading into Sunday, things remained surprisingly civilized.
Until Lap 32.
Van Gisbergen had looked completely untouchable up to that point before a restart stacked the field into a multi-car crash that triggered the first red flag in NASCAR Cup Series history at Naval Base Coronado. Nine cars were collected, including the overwhelming favorite.
And instantly the entire mood changed.
What had looked like a race for second suddenly became a race anyone thought they could win.
Nobody took advantage more effectively than 23XI Racing.
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Tyler Reddick races past the USS Carl Vinson.
With the laps winding down, Tyler Reddick led while Heim sat directly behind him. Bubba Wallace had improbably recovered from a two-lap deficit after a penalty sequence involving a lost wheel and was running third, while Riley Herbst remained close enough to matter.
Reddick needed the win. Denny Hamlin had chipped away at his points lead over the previous three races, and Sunday looked like the chance to stop the bleeding.
Heim, meanwhile, arrived carrying a different kind of momentum.
Just days after being announced as 23XI Racing’s full-time Cup Series driver for next season, San Diego became an unexpectedly convincing argument that the organization may not have to wait very long for that investment to start paying off.
The reigning Truck Series champion began closing deliberately rather than dramatically. By three laps to go the pair had detached themselves from the field and turned the race into a private argument through San Diego’s concrete canyons. Heim edged ahead exiting Turn 3. Reddick crossed him over. They arrived side-by-side at Turn 5 before contact finally shifted the moment.
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“I thought he was kind of playing with me,” Heim said. “Five to go came. Time to put some pressure on him, see if I could get him to make a mistake.”
Then came the moment that surprised Heim as much as anyone.
“He doored me down there in five and gave it back to me,” Heim said. “That’s something you don’t see every day. That’s a great teammate.”
One lap later, Reddick’s day collapsed entirely.
Coming to the white flag, a tire on his Toyota went flat. He slowed and headed to pit road while Heim disappeared into the distance and crossed the line more than 10 seconds ahead of Wallace. Larson, Zane Smith, and AJ Allmendinger completed the top five.
“I tried to battle back and overdid it,” Reddick admitted post-race. “I ran him straight in the wall. That wasn’t right. I wasn’t going to pass him for the win that way, especially a teammate.”
Afterward, Heim sounded less like a Cup winner and more like somebody still trying to process what had happened.
“After stage two, I just took a deep breath,” he said. “I had high expectations coming into this race. Even playing field for me. You don’t see that every day for a young driver like myself.”
Then came the line that probably summed up the afternoon best.
“This is insane… I hope I don’t wake up from this dream.”
Meanwhile, Reddick’s 25th-place finish combined with Hamlin’s 14th cut his points lead from 19 to just eight.
Next stop is Sonoma Raceway.
That’s where van Gisbergen won last year and where conventional wisdom will probably make him the favorite again.
But after San Diego, there’s now another 23XI driver everyone will be watching.
And this time, Corey Heim won’t be introducing himself.
Ron Lewis
A start line like NASCAR has never before seen.
I have been around and written about the sport of NASCAR for over three decades and previously worked fulltime for the Sporting News and Scripps-Howard News Service. I am also a contributor to two Chicken Soup for the Soul books including the NASCAR edition, published in 2010 and the author of “The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers’ Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing.” I am a multiple National Motorsports Press Association award winner. Early in life I spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community serving in support of Operation Just Cause, Desert Shield/Storm and ended my military career in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.