NAVAL BASE CORONADO, Calif. — For Corey Heim, the clock struck early.

“Heim Time,” as it’s known when the 23-year-old wins in NASCAR’s lower-tier Truck Series, wasn’t supposed to begin in earnest in the premier Cup Series until he joined 23XI Racing on a full-time basis next season.

But there was Heim on Sunday, tapping his wrist — a la NBA star Damian Lillard’s “Dame Time” celebration — in one of NASCAR’s most improbable wins in recent times.

This was only Heim’s 13th career Cup Series start, and it came at one of the most challenging tracks in NASCAR history: a 3.4-mile street course around the rough roads and runways of Naval Base Coronado.

The young Georgia native outlasted all the Cup Series veterans on NASCAR’s first-ever race on an active military base.

COREY HEIM IS A NASCAR CUP SERIES WINNER! pic.twitter.com/Px3nbOSYjx

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 22, 2026

Heim won NASCAR’s Truck Series championship last year in dominant fashion, but had no home for this season. He has been waiting for a Cup seat to open up for two years and is running part-time in Trucks and Cup this season before replacing Riley Herbst at 23XI next year.

His talent has been evident, though, which is why 23XI co-owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin moved to lock him up on their roster. And to win his first career race, Heim had to pass 23XI’s lead driver.

Tyler Reddick has won five times this year and appeared to be en route to a sixth, but Heim caught the Northern California driver and passed him with four laps to go.

Their battle involved contact that ended up with Reddick sustaining a flat tire, but Reddick said afterward Heim raced him cleanly and did nothing wrong. Rather, it was Reddick who had initiated the contact, he said.

Reddick finished 25th and his one-time triple-digit points lead over Denny Hamlin slipped to just eight points.

Big crash waylays heavy favorite

Anytime NASCAR visits a road course, all eyes are on Shane van Gisbergen, the overwhelming favorite to run away with the victory. And for much of Sunday, all indications were that this was his race to win and everyone else would have to fight it out for second-best.

This was until the complexion of the race flipped dramatically when Austin Hill locked up his brakes on a restart in Stage 2, pushing Connor Zilisch into the wall at the exit of Turn 1 and stacking up the field behind him, including van Gisbergen, who had nowhere to go and slammed into the slowing Hill.

BIG CRASH ON THE RESTART!

SVG AND ZILISCH ARE INVOLVED! pic.twitter.com/bOrghcm9y5

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 21, 2026

The damage knocked van Gisbergen and Zilisch out of the race, turning it into a wide-open affair with no clear favorite — an unusual occurrence on a road course ever since van Gisbergen debuted three years ago.

Afterwards, Hill took full blame for the incident, though this was little consolation for those whose days ended early.

“When you have a chance to go win a race and you’re in a prime spot to do so, but get put in a position like that, it’s extremely tough,” Zilisch said. “It’s been a big weekend for all of us at Trackhouse Racing and Red Bull, and I just hate that both cars get taken out like that. We’ll put our heads down, put this weekend behind us and move onto the next race.”

And how upset was van Gisbergen?

“I’m filthy,” he said.

— Jordan Bianchi

Bell climbs out at first caution

Despite a cast on his broken left wrist, Christopher Bell started the race and ran respectable lap times before climbing out of his No. 20 car at the first caution period.

Bell completed 12 laps before he pulled his car into the pits, taking advantage of the longstanding NASCAR policy that awards points to the driver of record (the one who starts the race).

Brent Crews then climbed into the car and got buckled in, with the team taking its time with longer-than-usual caution laps on NASCAR’s 3.4-mile base course.

“Good job with all that, fellas,” spotter Tab Boyd said after the driver change. “That went pretty smooth.”

Unfortunately, Crews didn’t make it much longer. On Lap 31, Crews suddenly stopped on track and said the gear box blew out of the car. The No. 20 car finished last (39th), and Bell took another hit in the points.

“I was kind of going through the gears, and it just broke, I’m not really sure,” Crews said. “I’m going to have to have Adam (Stevens, the team’s crew chief) look over it and myself to figure out if it was something I did or if it was just a freak accident.”

— Jeff Gluck

Bubba Wallace rallies

After Bubba Wallace climbed out of his car, it was hard to tell whether he was pleased with a hard-fought runner-up finish, which included overcoming a two-lap penalty, or frustrated with another potential win that slipped away?

So what was Wallace thinking about as he sat on the pit wall for several minutes, giving little indication either way what he was thinking”

“What if,” Wallace said. “It’s another one. ‘What if?’ A good rebound for our team.”

The conflicting emotions stem from Wallace’s 23XI Racing team having a miscue on pit road where the crew left a right-front wheel loose. Upon leaving pit road, Wallace immediately radioed his team about the issue. A short bit later, that wheel came off, rolling across the track as Wallace limped back to pit road. Compounding the frustration, he had been running solidly near the front at the time.

“There it f—ing went. You’ve got to be f—ing kidding me,” Wallace shouted over the radio.

Per NASCAR’s rules, Wallace was issued a two-lap penalty and two of his crew members will be suspended two races when NASCAR releases its penalty report later this week. And with the two-lap penalty, any chance for a win, or even a top-five finish, seemingly vanished.

Not quite.

A rash of cautions allowed Wallace to earn the free pass, eventually returning him back to the lead lap. From here, he picked his way forward to where he was running third in the closing laps. And when teammate Tyler Reddick suffered a flat tire with two laps remaining, Wallace moved into second, where he finished.

“Go figure, drive your ass off on a track that you have no idea what you’re doing, drive up to lead, and then have it all taken away from you,” Wallace said. “I’m not bashing anybody — pit crew is one of the best on pit road and they had a mistake. We all have mistakes, unfortunately.

“But at the end of our weekends, we fill out ‘was it a green race, or was it not?’ And here’s another one that’s not. So that’s a lot of not-green races for us. And by green, means nothing went wrong, we executed, whether that’s a top five or top 20. There’s just another asterisk mark beside our finish and that’s what’s frustrating. So, good day, I guess.”