HOMESTEAD, Fla – Corey Heim stood on pit road of Homestead-Miami Speedway next to his No. 11 Toyota with eyes glazed over by tears. Surrounding him was a cornucopia of television, radio and print media alike.
Sudden and unexpected electrical engine issues cost him a third NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win of the season, and for the young 22-year-old, this loss stung the worst.
“It’s about the most a race has stung,” Heim told reporters on pit road post-race. “Just having that good of a truck … I feel like we were lights out the best truck. We probably would have won the race by 10 seconds if we hadn’t had that problem … That one sucks, for sure.”
Indeed, only 18 minutes earlier, at precisely 9:48 p.m. ET, it was in fact Heim Time in Southern Florida.
Heim took the lead from Ross Chastain during Friday (March 21) night’s Truck Series race in Homestead with only 31 laps to go. After leading a race-high 70 laps and sweeping both stages 1 and 2, the No. 11 was heavily predicted to sail away to what was expected to be his third victory of the season.
But only moments later, upon entering the next corner, everything in his truck went quiet. The engine included.
Heim loses ground all of a sudden! He falls back to P3!
— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneCPT) March 22, 2025
Suddenly Chastain and Riggs are now battling for the lead!
18 to go#NASCAR #BaptistHealth200
“It was just a hard cut on the motor,” Heim told Frontstretch. “It went from having full power and no issues from my volts on my dash to hard cut on my dash. My dash would go black. I had to reach my right arm over and recycle the power with the power switch.”
The blackout caused Heim to lose his lead to rivals Layne Riggs and Chastain. He was relegated to third, pleading with his crew chief to give him a solution.
Yet Heim, miraculously, endured. Not only did his engine come back to life, but he ran both Riggs and Chastain back down to retake the lead.
“I got it refired,” Heim recalled to reporters. “I was able to drive past those guys again. It was just unreal. It was hard to get into a rhythm with all of those issues happening.
“It would take about six seconds. It would happen every two laps or so.”
Then it happened again, and again.
"Yep, it happened again!" – Heim saying his engine keep shutting off
— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneCPT) March 22, 2025
"It's getting worse"#NASCAR #BaptistHealth200
Yet after every time, Heim would restart the power and pass the duo again. It seemed to finally go away with around 10 laps to go, and Heim appeared to be able to ride off into the Miami sunset.
Then it happened one final time with five laps to go. With no time for recovery left this time, that was all she wrote for young Heim.
It left the door open for both Riggs and Chastain a second time. However, while he nursed his ailing No. 11 Toyota back to life, a hard-charging Kyle Larson sailed around him to take the lead and end any hopes Heim had of securing what would have been a miraculous victory.
“At the end of the day, we had speed,” Heim said. “We had a really good points day, but it just doesn’t really make up for it when you have that much speed, I guess.”
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loudcolumn, co-host of the Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT