Denny Hamlin called Corey Heim a generational talent when he announced the Georgia native as his newest full-time driver. Three weeks later, Heim went out and broke through for his first career Cup Series win.
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Heim, only running a partial schedule this season, delivered in the biggest moment of his career in what was only his 13th Cup Series start. The former Truck Series champion chased down teammate Tyler Reddick after a restart with 12 laps remaining in the race, and then he made the pass with three laps to go.
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The pass happened after Reddick missed the corner. Heim got next to him and cleared for the lead. Reddick then used a crossover move to get back to the left side of Heim's No. 67 Toyota.
The two made contact and nearly had a disastrous moment. Reddick slid to the side and hit Heim into the marbles. The No. 67 got loose and then tagged the wall. Instead of pulling clear for the lead, Reddick slowed up and let Heim go back by.
COREY HEIM TO THE LEAD! pic.twitter.com/gD61uao21u
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 22, 2026
"I tried to battle back and overdid it," Reddick said. "I really did. I ran him straight in the wall, and that wasn't right, so I wasn't going to pass him for the win that way. That's for sure, especially a teammate."
From that point on, the part-time driver just had to manage his race. He pulled away from Reddick, who ultimately blew a tire and fell back to 25th place. He kept his 10-second advantage over Bubba Wallace in second place all the way to the checkered flag.
Wallace finished second. Kyle Larson, Zane Smith, AJ Allmendinger, Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, Riley Herbst, Ryan Blaney, and Michael McDowell all finished in the top 10. Chastain did so after sliding into a spinning Carson Hocevar on Lap 63.
Heim captured his first career Cup Series win on a day when the No. 67 team had countless radio issues. He helped crew chief Bootie Barker capture his third career win from atop the pit box, and his first since the 2022 season.
"I'm speechless," Heim said to Prime Video's Trevor Bayne. "We started the race, I mean, I think we started 13th, we fell straight back to like 20th. Then put on our scuffs from qualifying and struggled just as bad.
"I don't know if we made any adjustments, but Bootie kept telling me these were our two worst sets of tires and we were going to be just fine. He was right. I couldn't believe it. We strapped another set of tires on it, and we were just fine. Hit the wall a couple of times, maybe it knocked some good into the car."
