Corey Heim, a driver for 23XI Racing, talked about one of the most difficult times in his racing career.
Before being destroyed by Carson Hocevar in the championship race, the 22-year-old was poised to win the Truck Series title in 2023 after winning the regular season despite missing a race due to illness.
After Heim wrecked Hocevar in revenge, he was fined five figures and dropped 25 points. In one of the most crazy races in Truck Series history, which featured four overtime restarts, Christian Eckes won the championship.
In addition to his Truck Series obligations, the young driver has been competing part-time in the Cup Series this year with 23XI. He talked candidly with The Athletic about what he acknowledged was a difficult period.
“The 2023 championship in the Trucks, just with Carson (Hocevar) and the whole mess there. It was just a big rollercoaster of emotions and the public perception. For the most part, I’ve been a really clean driver.
“I don’t really cause a lot of crap, but being under that microscope with 30 to go in a Truck (championship) race and everything happening the way it did, it put me in a bad light. I had to handle that because I pride myself on racing the way I want to be race, so seeing people come crashing down on me for retaliating was tough.
“The good part of it was I had the whole offseason to just get over it. It wasn’t like I had to go racing next week with that mindset. But from a broad perspective, I feel like it was a warranted thing, but I had to just understand I was under a microscope, and it got blown out of proportion a little bit from my standpoint.”
With four victories and four additional top-three finishes from 12 races, Heim has completely dominated the Truck Series in 2025 and is now more than 100 points ahead of the competition.
With 23XI in grave danger of losing drivers Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick after an appeals court decided that NASCAR might revoke the team’s charters, he may also see more Cup Series action than anticipated in the foreseeable future.
