A day’s wait was well worth it for Corey Heim on Sunday at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Heim led a race-high 66 laps in winning Sunday’s second act of the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series’ Wright Brand 250, which was postponed after 81 laps on Saturday due to rain.
Heim held off all comers in a frantic fight to the finish. Grant Enfinger, Layne Riggs and Brenden “Butterbean” Queen – in his Truck Series debut – engaged in a spirited battle for second. Enfinger prevailed in the three-way tussle over the final laps, but Heim had already built up a sizable gap out front.
Heim beat Enfinger to the line by 2.474 seconds in securing his series-leading third win of the season. Riggs, Queen and Sammy Smith rounded out the top five.
The victory was Heim’s eighth of his Truck Series career, but he wasn’t the only driver who showed speed throughout the race. Pole winner Christian Eckes won Stage 1 and fought with Queen over a spot in the top five in the closing stages. Eckes ended up sixth ahead of Nick Sanchez, Tyler Ankrum, Daniel Dye and Stewart Friesen.
Stage 2 winner Ty Majeski finished 11th.
COREY HEIM, NO. 11 TRICON GARAGE TOYOTA (RACE WINNER): “(The track) was totally different (than last year, since the repave), but they kept the characteristics of the track. The seams and the bumps were still there, which was cool to see. I can’t say enough about the repave. It was pretty good. You could move around, find different grooves and go where the grip was. That’s what we like about short-track racing. We thought at first it was going to be a track position-based race, but we were able to move around, find the right grooves and get back to the front. We made our bed with a four-tire stop strategy, we knew guys would take two tires, but our Toyota Tundra was good enough to pull away and win the race.”
GRANT ENFINGER, NO. 9 CR7 MOTORSPORTS CHEVROLET (RUNNER-UP): “If we had a caution there at the end, we could’ve at least made it interesting. I definitely think (Heim) had the advantage, but kudos to everyone at North Wilkesboro Speedway. This is, by far, the best new pavement I’ve ever (driven) on. There were multiple grooves and if you had a fast truck, you could pass guys. I’m proud of the strides we’ve made as a team. We haven’t been able to show it, we’ve been making gains in the shop and our performance hadn’t been there. The last two weeks, it has.”
LAYNE RIGGS, NO. 38 FRONT ROW MOTORSPORTS FORD (THIRD PLACE): “We really needed this finish. It was so tough to make a good guess on what adjustments to make, because you have to pit so early on in the race that you’ve got to predict how the track’s going to change. I felt really good at the end of the run and fast, but just tight at the end of the run. This team, we should deserve a finish up here every weekend. It was a good race today, we had a lot of zMAX CARS Tour guys up there – Corey (Heim), Butterbean (Queen), all those guys. It shows how your short-track background works out. The track moved around a lot more than I expected. It started on the bottom and would move up higher and higher the more you’d run, but it’d build tight. Everybody was free at the start of a run and whoever could manage that, was better at the end of the run. But (Heim) was lights-out faster. So, a good win for them and they deserve it, but I wish we could been a little bit better to get up there and race with them.”
Speedway Motorsports PR
