NEWTON, Iowa — Going into Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway, it quickly became clear that Corey Heim had a rocket ship. He paced practice Friday afternoon, setting a time nearly a tenth of a second quicker than Jesse Love.
That helped shape a potential banner afternoon for Sam Hunt Racing, now in its fourth season of full-time operation. It has searched for its first career victory, coming close several times — even as recently as at Portland (Ore.) Int’l Raceway two weeks ago with Ed Jones.
Saturday, though, might have been the organization’s best shot yet.
Heim ultimately finished third, tying SHR’s best finish — which dates back to John Hunter Nemechek at Richmond (Va.) Raceway in 2021.
“We had a great car all day,” Heim said after the race. “Thought we were the best car yesterday and we were up there today. Had a couple things fall our way there at the end to get in the top five and come home with a great P3 for this small team. Super thankful for Sam Hunt Racing, Yahoo, Toyota Racing and everyone from that side of things.
“Great effort and going to move forward and try to win one of these things one day.”
Certainly, the 21-year-old from Marietta, Georgia had his work cut out for him. Instead of a starting position toward the front, qualifying got rained out and the field got set by the metric. So, Heim had to come all the way from 22nd to get into contention.
But just eight laps in, Heim already made it up to ninth before battling a tire vibration. He ultimately finished eighth in Stage One and fourth in Stage Two, keeping his No. 26 Toyota GR Supra in the mix all afternoon.
As the race progressed – especially in the final stage – several cars began experiencing tire failures, including contenders Austin Hill and Justin Allgaier. Heim continued to manage his tires well, and with 12 laps to go, ran sixth.
“We certainly struggled with tires early,” Heim added. “Really didn’t think that was going to be an issue, but it proved to be kind of how the whole race went.”
Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Sheldon Creed and John Hunter Nemechek made contact battling for the lead on the lap 238 restart, and both fell back. Heim took advantage, getting up to third before a caution came out for Nemechek, who blew a tire because of the sustained damage.
But in NASCAR Overtime, Heim didn’t have anything for race winner Sam Mayer.
“Really surprised the leaders didn’t run into each other at the end,” Heim said, describing the final two-lap shootout between Mayer and Riley Herbst. “That was kind of what I was waiting on. I could’ve, in hindsight, been more aggressive to push the issue, but thought they were going to take care of that themselves. Sure enough, that didn’t happen.”
In seven starts with SHR, Heim has an average finish of 18.4, weighed down by a crash at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway and an engine failure at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway.
His finish of fourth at Richmond was the organization’s previous best result of the 2024 campaign.