Corey Heim caps off historic season with 2025 Craftsman Truck Series championship
via Zach Sturniolo — NASCAR.com
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Corey Heim had been to the Championship 4 each of the past two seasons and fallen short at Phoenix Raceway. The third time was the charm.
After late cautions and pit strategy seemed to jeopardize his chances, Heim used an incredible two restarts in overtime to charge to a record-setting 12th win en route to the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship at Phoenix.
“Last year, I thought it was our year. We had the momentum. And for lack of a better word, we kind of got our teeth kicked in,” Heim said. “And this year we came back, and, I mean, broke just about every record you possibly could.”
His 2025 campaign was legendary. In addition to his outrageous win total — besting the previous record of nine set by Greg Biffle in 1999 — Heim led a record 1,627 laps, became the first driver to lead a lap in every race and averaged an improbable 1.4 finish through the seven playoff races. He also led all drivers with seven poles, 19 top fives, 21 top 10s and 23 stage wins.
No one has ever had a season as dominant in the Craftsman Truck Series as Heim did. To cap it with a championship in Friday’s winner-take-all event was everything Heim hoped for.
“It’s definitely a lot of weight off my shoulders to be able to come and do it at the championship race, for sure,” Heim said. “I think everyone has known how good we’ve been throughout the year and how dominant we’ve been, how many stage wins and wins and poles, whatever, you name it. At the end of the day and coming into Phoenix, we all knew we were the best team, but anything could happen at the end of the day.
“So I was very stressed, to be honest. I think everyone that’s close to me knows that at this point. But yeah, to be able to win and do it for everyone on our crew that’s worked so hard those early mornings and late nights … those guys work their tails off on the 11 crew, and everyone at Tricon and Toyota really put an effort into it. To be able to see the smiles on their faces after the race really means the world to me.”
Despite his historic campaign, his title chances were in doubt until the final moments of Friday’s race. Heim was running second to Layne Riggs and in position to claim the championship when the caution flag waved with three laps to go. The ensuing round of pit stops plummeted Heim to 10th with four fresh tires on the restart after two trucks stayed out and seven others elected to take two tires.
The circumstances seemed reminiscent of so many races early in 2025 that seemed to slip away from Heim and his No. 11 Tricon Garage team. But in a microcosm of his season, Heim overcame the odds and rocketed from 10th to second in one set of corners with the restart of a lifetime, diving to the bottom of Turns 1 and 2 against the inside wall in an improbable seven-wide move.
“I don’t care if I was on hundred-lap tires; nobody was going to beat me tonight,” Heim said. “It wasn’t going to happen. We struggled all weekend in practice a little bit. In qualifying, we missed it a little bit. You can always trust Scott (Zipadelli, crew chief) up on the box to do everything he can to put me in a position to win the race. That’s what he did.
“Drove it in deep until I couldn’t anymore. Drove away with it.”
Zipadelli never questioned the call to take four tires, nor did he question Heim’s ability to charge back forward despite the limited laps left.
“We do a lot better when we’re on offense and not defense,” Zipadelli said. “When you put two tires on like that, it’s going to mess your balance up as it is, and then you’re going to be on defense to anybody who does put four tires on.”
Challenges have always presented themselves to Heim — sometimes in the form of mechanical gremlins like at Homestead-Miami Speedway in March that hindered his chances of winning, and sometimes in the form of errant contact from on-track competitors.
But from those moments have come notable growth in how Heim reacts, leading to wiser, more calculated moves at age 23.
“I think at the end of the day, it just takes the experience to understand how to conquer adversity,” Heim said. “To conquer adversity, I feel like you have to be in adversity, and you have to learn how to get through those things. Just being put in the spot where you’re in 10th place on a green-white-checkered (restart) and having to go get after it, I feel like you’ve had to be on the losing side of that once or twice to understand how to execute on that and actually win.
“I’ve been on the losing side of it a lot of times in my short career. I’ve gotten wiped out; I’ve wiped people out. It takes everything to understand. And sometimes you don’t like it at the end of the day, but as long as you can grow and learn from it, I think that’s the most important part. And I’ve been able to kind of digest these tough experiences in past championship races, and I feel like I’ve been able to apply that too.”
Zipadelli has witnessed that growth firsthand, first as a budding, first-time full-timer in 2023 and now into a champion. The key, he said, simply boils down to trust.
“The biggest thing (is) him entrusting us,” Zipadelli said. “Trusting the truck’s gonna be OK and we’re gonna make the right adjustments and we’ll bring a good truck to him, and when we say pit, you pit. I think you earn that trust over those over those ups and downs. And obviously, when you start winning races regularly, the confidence builds.
“So probably the biggest thing is his confidence in himself, and then his confidence in that we’re going to bring a good truck to the track. And if it’s not good, we’re going to work on and make it better and give the opportunity for us to win.”
The No. 11 Toyota had plenty of opportunities to win in 2025. Heim made sure it did 12 times in 2025. And this time, he wheeled it all the way to a championship.