INDIANAPOLIS — Corey Heim stepped into Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time Friday. Two days later, he was celebrating on Victory Podium after an impressive drive to victory Sunday in the Brickyard 400 presented by PPG.
Part-time NASCAR Cup Series driver Heim, from Marietta, Georgia, took the lead in the No. 67 Field & Stream Toyota of 23XI Racing on a frantic restart on Lap 127 and held off Christopher Bell over the final 34 laps for victory in his first Brickyard start. This was just his 15th career Cup Series race.
A star is born.
“This is a dream come true, winning at the Brickyard,” Heim said. “That was unbelievable. Caught a break early with the pit cycle and just executed all day. Made no mistakes, my pit crew and my team.”
Heim, 24, won the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship and is running a partial Cup Series season with 23XI Racing before joining the team full time in 2027. He became the first part-time driver to win this crown jewel NASCAR event and the second-youngest driver to win this race behind Jeff Gordon, who was 23 when he captured the inaugural Cup Series race at IMS in 1994. Gordon is the only other driver to win the Brickyard in his first start in the race.
This also was the second consecutive Brickyard victory for the 23XI team, co-owned by basketball icon Michael Jordan and Cup Series star Denny Hamlin. Bubba Wallace won last year for 23XI.
Bell finished second today in the No. 20 Rheem Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing, .287 of a second behind Heim. Three-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano was third in the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford of Team Penske.
Indiana native Chase Briscoe placed fourth in the No. 19 Mobil 1 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing, and Denny Hamlin placed three Joe Gibbs Racing cars in the top five in the No. 11 National Debt Relief Toyota.
Todd Gilliland earned a $1 million bonus for winning the NASCAR In-Season Challenge. He placed 24th in the No. 34 Grillo’s Pickles Ford of Front Row Motorsports, edging the No. 12 Menards/Delta Ford of fellow Challenge finalist Ryan Blaney of Team Penske, who finished 26th.
The pivotal point of the 160-lap race came on the final restart on Lap 127. Hamlin led the field to the green flag on the inside line, with teammates Bell and Briscoe right behind. Heim started second, on the outside line with Logano behind him.
But the JGR line on the inside lane was scattered, with Hamlin, Bell and Briscoe not aligned nose-to-tail to possibly bump-draft and keep Hamlin out front. Meanwhile, Logano pushed Heim ahead of Hamlin on the outside in Turn 1.
Hamlin nearly edged even with Heim in Turn 2, but Heim slammed the door shut and kept a lead he would never surrender.
“It’s a fight to win the race, and when you’re clear by an inch, you’re going to take that inch,” Hamlin said. “It’s really more on us and the 20 (Bell) and the 19 (Briscoe) to just not orchestrate the good pushes there.
“I thought the 20 was obviously onboard with giving us the push. It was just way too early, before the restart zone. I can’t go until you get to the restart zone. He said that Briscoe was on him way, way early or laying back, one of the two. That’s how you lose them. These restarts, when everyone kind of knows when you’re going to go, it’s about the pushes. That’s how I got the lead from the 67 (Heim) on the restart before.”
But once he got out front, it was far from a Sunday stroll to victory for Heim, who also won earlier this season in the street race at San Diego.
Bell stayed within three- to four-tenths of a second of Heim for the next 30 laps. He pulled to within .164 of a second with two laps to go, pouring on pressure, but Heim padded that gap to .364 of a second with one lap to go and held on to a loose-handling race car on the final trip around the 2.5-mile oval to win.
“That was a damn handful,” Heim said. “I was hanging on for dear life once the shade went down and the pace picked up. My car got really loose. I had never really been in a lot of clean air throughout the day, so that was the hardest I’ve ever fought in my life to just make sure I focused on exits and kept them in dirty air. I’m pretty out of breath. That was a workout.”
Said Bell: “I didn’t think I was going to be able to get there at all. My guys were telling me he was going loose, and I knew that was going really be my only opportunity, was a mistake by him.
“I knew that 35 laps was a very long run. Man, I just needed one bobble. If he would have had one bobble, I was going to be able to get there. But he did a great job. He showed excellent mental toughness and put together 35 good laps.”
Heim, who started seventh, led four times for 58 laps, both race highs.
Polesitter Carson Hocevar led the first 31 laps in the No. 77 Ziegler Auto Group Chevrolet of Spire Motorsports before making his first pit stop. But he never led thereafter and finished ninth.
Heim inherited the lead on Lap 41 by running long on the first pit cycle before Ty Gibbs took the top spot on Lap 45 in the No. 54 SAIA Freight + Logistics Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing. Gibbs stayed there – also winning the first stage at the end of Lap 60 — until pitting on Lap 74, with Heim taking over the lead from Laps 75-91.
Ross Chastain won the second stage, which ended on Lap 100, in the No. 1 Busch Light Chevrolet of Trackhouse Racing. By that point, Heim had climbed back to fifth and jumped to third when leader Chastain and second-place Gilliland pitted on Lap 101.
Nearly the entire field pitted for their final stops on Lap 115 during a caution, and Heim’s earlier pit strategy paid dividends. His previous stop was on Lap 93, later than most of his rivals, so he needed less fuel and a shorter stop, giving him the lead as the field approached the restart on Lap 120.
Hamlin passed Heim on the outside of Turn 1 on that restart, but another caution flew almost immediately when John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 42 Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Toyota nudged Blaney into the Turn 3 wall. That set up the fateful final restart on Lap 127 where Heim took the lead for keeps.
