In A Nutshell
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Corey Heim emerged victorious in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Heim won his fourth race of the 2025 season at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Friday night (May 23). He achieved near perfection in doing so — he won both stages, led the most laps (98) and also earned the bonus point for the fastest lap of the race. He joins Kyle Larson as the only two drivers to achieve a 61-point race — Larson did so in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.
Niece Motorsports teammates Ross Chastain and Kaden Honeycutt finished second and third, respectively. Layne Riggs and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five.
The Top Truckers at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Winner, Stage 1 & 2 Winner, Most Laps Led (98 of 134), Fastest Lap (30.409 seconds, 177.579 mph): Corey Heim
Polesitter: Gio Ruggiero
Biggest Mover: Stewart Friesen (started 32nd, finished 13th)
Top Storylines of the Race
- Aside from the stage breaks, the race only had one additional caution for cause, which came immediately after the restart that began the final stage. Polesitter Gio Ruggiero got loose and turned Chandler Smith into the path of Ty Majeski, sending both sliding through the infield. Meanwhile, Connor Mosack and BJ McLeod came together, with the former taking major damage from colliding with the wall.
- Heim’s 15 wins tie Matt Crafton on the all-time Truck Series win list. The crazy part about that? Crafton has been a Truck Series driver since Oct. 28, 2000 and has three championships.
- Heim also wins his 15th race in his 75th start, making his win rate an even 20%. That means for every five races Heim enters, he wins one of them, which is insanely impressive.
The Winning Move
It’s hard to tell where the winning move came when the winner led 98 of the race’s 134 laps. However, the only time drivers were able to take the lead from the No. 11 was either on a yellow-flag pit stop or the ensuing restart.
After the caution for the crash, it was clear Heim needed to get a good restart, lest he fall into the clutches of Chastain, who was really good on the short run. Heim got a huge push into turn 1 on the restart, and was able to clear the field in what was the calmest restart of the night.
Except for the green-flag pit stop cycle, Heim led the rest of the way en route to his fourth win of the year in the final 1.5-mile race of the season — yes, you read that right. The final 14 races of the 2025 season will not be on a mile-and-a-half track.
Playoff Rundown
Heim moves to four wins on the season, extending his regular season championship lead by a whopping 100 points over second-place Smith.
Back at the cut line, Stewart Friesen continues to hold the 10th and final spot by a mere seven points, but he has a new challenger: Ruggiero, who moves into 11th and looks to become the latest Truck Series rookie to make the playoffs.
Rookie Report
Rookie of the Race: Charlotte was not too kind to the rookies this time around. In a race where no rookies finished inside the top 15 (including polesitter Ruggiero), it was Andres Perez who was able to prevail over the other rookies in NASCAR’s home race. The Mexican wheeled his No. 77 home to a 16th-place finish, completing a quadruple top-16 finish for Spire Motorsports and earning him this week’s rookie of the race honors.
No. 2 — Cody Dennison (29th)
No. 5 — Toni Breidinger *(30th)
No. 17 — Gio Ruggiero* (21st)
No. 26 — Dawson Sutton* (31st)
No. 33 — Frankie Muniz* (27th)
No. 66 — Luke Fenhaus (18th)
No. 77 — Andres Perez* (16th)
No. 81 — Connor Mosack* (23rd)
*Denotes 2025 Rookie of the Year contender
One Big Takeaway From This Race
Longevity in racing is impressive. Whether it’s in one series or throughout an entire career between NASCAR’s three premier series, if you can make hundreds of starts, consider yourself lucky.
Such is the case with Timmy Hill, who, despite making just his third start in the Truck Series this season, made his 500th career NASCAR start on Friday night. Hill has driven for many teams across multiple series for 15 years, and has been everywhere from part- to full-time in that span.
Hill stepped away from full-time competition in the Truck Series to focus on running full-time in the ARCA Menards Series East (before a crash at Rockingham Speedway forced him to sit out for two races, presumably due to lack of a racecar). However, he’s scheduled for at least four Truck Series starts including No. 500.
As such, Hill and his family-owned team Hill Motorsports gave him a special paint scheme to commemorate the occasion.
After qualifying 27th, Hill finished 19th and even led a lap after playing some late strategy to try to steal a better finish in his 500th start.
Making 500 starts is no easy feat — it’s even harder for a driver who has always had a lack of resources in the teams he drives for, and now the team he owns. But Hill has come a long way, and still has a strong fanbase behind him.
Here’s to 500 more for the 32-year-old.
Talkin’ Truckers
Heim discusses his win, throwing shade at Riggs in the process after their contact last week at North Wilkesboro Speedway:
Niece teammates Chastain (second), Honeycutt (third) and Matt Mills (seventh) break down their evenings and the emotions of earning Niece its first triple top 10 in team history:
Riggs (fourth) and Rajah Caruth (ninth) discuss their top 10 runs:
Busch (fifth) discussed the difference between driving Spire Motorsports’ trucks and Kyle Busch Motorsports trucks:
McLeod (15th) discussed his night and how much it meant to him:
Before the race, McLeod discussed the possibility of more races with Spire and how the deal to run the No. 07 at Charlotte came together:
Paint Scheme of the Race
Stefan Parsons became the third driver to drive Young’s Motorsports’ No. 02, continuing his part-time schedule with Young’s, and he brought a beautiful paint scheme with sponsor Springrates.
A beautiful blend of bright green and blue atop a gray and black base scheme made for a wonderfully-designed paint scheme — topped off by a bright white number outlined in green. It was a nice multicolored scheme that didn’t go to far in any sort of ridiculous bright patterns.
Parsons wheeled this beauty home to a 22nd-place finish.
Next Stop
We’re rocking and rolling on to Tennessee.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series heads to Nashville Superspeedway for the Rackley Roofing 200. Nashville’s race weekend has been moved up by about three weeks in an attempt to avoid the dreadfully hot weather that comes in June.
Christian Eckes led wire-to-wire to win last year’s race, but he will not defend his race win due to his status as a NASCAR Xfinity Series driver.
Coverage for the Rackley Roofing 200 begins at approximately 8 p.m. ET on Friday, May 30. Television coverage remains on FOX Sport 1, while radio coverage can be found, as always, exclusively on the all-new NASCAR Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Channel 90.
Follow @AnthonyDamcott on X.
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter. He has also assisted with short track content and social media, among other duties he takes/has taken on for the site. In 2025, he became an official member of the National Motorsports Press Association. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight coordinator in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.