What’s Keeping Corey Heim in the Truck Series?

Corey Heim has won his 6th race of the so far 17-race truck series season. That’s impressive enough without remembering how many races he dominated, but Heim blew it at the end. Or the fact that this is his 17th career truck series, 17th. Or that he’s led 1,050 laps, the most out of anyone, with 2nd place Layne Riggs only having led 265.

So What’s keeping Corey Heim in the Truck Series?!

Well, three things: his lack of sponsorship, rivalry with Ty Gibbs, but most importantly, the lack of Toyota times in the Xfinity Series. And thanks a bunch for reading; see you later! Okay, let’s go into more detail about all three issues!

Corey Heim Has Never had a Sponsorship

That might be a shock to some, considering his dominance since ARCA and the significant backing Toyota is providing him. But it’s that Toyota backing that’s why he’s in 1st place. The sponsors you see on his trucks, like Safelite or Mobil 1, are both linked to Toyota and not Corey Heim, with Mobil 1 even sponsoring other Toyota drivers like JHN or Bell. While this explains why 23XI chose a driver with sponsorship like Herbst over him, it doesn’t hold up 100%. As Chase Briscoe, who had nothing to do with Toyota before this year, is now on JGR, replacing MTJ. Bass Pro is not a Briscoe sponsor, but a NASCAR one.

Let’s Talk About Heim’s Rivalry with Ty Gibbs

They haven’t raced each other for an entire season since 2021, but man, did they race each other. Ty Gibbs was obviously on his grandpa’s team, and Heim drove for the dominant Venturini, so no shock they won 16 out of the 20 races. So it should also be no shock the 2 aggressive and hot-headed drivers clashed with each other throughout 2021.

Starting at Elko, on lap 63, Heim tried to pass Gibbs on the outside, but Gibbs bumped him to keep the lead. Heim took that personally as he bumped Gibbs into the next turn, but the 18 kept the lead. On a late race restart, Heim shoves Gibbs off the racing line, which caused the dominant Gibbs to finish 4th while Heim won that night. Heim even admitted to payback in his victory lane interview, trash-talking his fellow Toyota driver while he was at it.

 It Wouldn’t Be long Before The Two Young Guns were at it Again

At Winchester, Corey Heim was dominating, but Ty Gibbs was right behind him. As Heim dealt with lap traffic, Gibbs kept slamming into his back bumper, and then Gibbs, getting more impatient, drove it deeper into turn 1 and dumped Heim, ruining the chance for him to win. Heim, in his interview, said nothing against him, but you can tell he was hiding his fury. The following incident occurred at Watkins Glen. With the two starting side by side, the two banged doors on lap one but carried on the rest of the race and season clean.

Corey Heim Hasn’t Raced With Ty Gibbs

Despite no other incidents since then, many suspect this is why Corey Heim hasn’t once raced with Gibbs! Any talented Toyota prospect has spent at least some time with JGR since the mid-2010s, but Heim, since 2022, has raced with every other Toyota team in Cup and Xfinity. LMC in 2024, 23XI in 24, and 24 plus SHR from 2023 to this year. Many look to this as the only reason why JGR would go with the likes of Brandon Jones or Sawalich over this proven talent.

And Gibbs has proven to be petty before. He raised the cost of equipment for Furniture Row after they beat them to a title in 2017, leading to them shutting down in 2018. But that exposes another problem and the biggest reason why Heim is still in trucks!

Toyota Only Has Two Xfinity Series Teams

Those being JGR and Sam Hunt, with only 1 of those even being competitive! SHR is a mid-pack team with one full-time ride filled by Dean Thompson, who’s been doing great this season, but also brings sponsorship from his family as well. Toyota casts a vast net for their driver development, yet they have very few seats for all their development drivers. Trucks, too.

While TRICON does have a lot of seats, there’s only one other seat outside of that single team, and it’s an owner-driver operation owned and driven by Stewart Friesen. This is unfair to Corey Heim, but also to the rest of the Toyota development drivers. With Haas merging with LMC, it opens the chance for Heim and others to join Haas’s Xfinity team, creating opportunities for Toyota and making them less reliant on JGR.