Corey Heim earned the regular season championship in his first full-time season in the NASCAR Truck Series after the completion of the first stage this evening in Richmond. The Toyota development driver is the first driver in NASCAR history to earn a regular season title despite missing a race (Gateway, illness) and earning a Playoff waiver. Heim, the reigning Truck Series Rookie of the Year, leads the series in top-10 finishes and average finish. Heim has an impressive 13 top-10 finishes in 15 starts this year. The Georgia-native will be the no. 1 seed in the Playoffs and goes into the playoff opener at Indianapolis Raceway Park on a streak of nine consecutive top-10 finishes.
Heim also led Toyota this evening with a sixth-place run, while his teammate William Sawalich started a career-best third and earned his second top-10 finish in just his third start.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series
Richmond Raceway
Race 16 of 23 – 250 Laps, 187.5 Miles
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Carson Hocevar*
2nd, Ty Majeski*
3rd, Zane Smith*
4th, Jake Garcia*
5th, Matt Mills*
6th, COREY HEIM
10th, WILLIAM SAWALICH
13th, TYLER ANKRUM
14th, TAYLOR GRAY
16th, TANNER GRAY
23rd, TIMMY HILL
25th, DEAN THOMPSON
27th, STEWART FRIESEN
30th, RYAN VARGAS
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
COREY HEIM, No. 11 JBL Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, TRICON Garage
Finishing Position: 6th
Regular season champion. What does that mean to you and this team?
“Yeah, it really means a lot. With TRICON Garage and Toyota Racing, we’ve come such a long way from the beginning of the year. I really felt like we had a lot of progress to make in the first four or five weeks and we’ve really been improving ever since. Tonight, it was a rough night at Richmond. It is kind of a unique race track. On the normal tracks, we’ve been really consistent. Still a good finish for us, but definitely want to do better leading into the Playoffs.”
Who are you leaning on with your first Playoff run?
“For sure, (crew chief) Scott Zipadelli. He has Playoff experience with a lot of different drivers and he’s won a championship. Just learning what that is like – it’s really my first time competing in a Playoff format, so leaning on him and leaning on my crew who is also full of experience, along with a lot of people in the shop. Once again, just hats off to everyone at TRICON Garage, Toyota Racing, JBL and Safelite.”
Does being the regular season champion make you one of the favorites to be the champion in Phoenix?
“I would certainly say so. We’ve been about the most consistent these last two or three months. If we can carry that into the Playoffs, we will be tough to beat. Definitely have to improve on tonight, but it’s a different track – unique. We’ve got a couple more short tracks coming up and I think we will be good.”
WILLIAM SAWALICH, No. 1 Starkey/Soundgear Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, TRICON Garage
Finishing Position: 10th
Third Truck Series start, and second top-10. Can you take us through your run tonight?
“We were really strong in the long run. We had really fast Soundgear Toyota Tundra. Everything we did was good. I think I executed well for myself. I learned a few things here and there. That long run in the end kind of killed us there with trucks passing us, and that ended up a net loss of time. I did the best I could trying to gain as much time and ended up in the top-10 there.”
STEWART FRIESEN, No. 52 Halmar International Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, Halmar Friesen Racing
Finishing Position: 27th
Can you take us through your run tonight and what you can look forward to for the rest of the season?
“I don’t know. Thanks to Halmar – like I said earlier – for sticking with us, and thanks to Ferris Mowers for being on-board this season. Looking forward to going to Milwaukee and representing them. We brought a dull knife to a gun fight tonight.”
Toyota Racing PR
