In a Nutshell
New track? No problem for Corey Heim.
In the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series’ inaugural race at Lime Rock Park, Heim led 99 of 100 laps, swept the stages, set the fastest lap and won from the pole in one of the most dominant victories for the No. 11 team on the season.
The win is already Heim’s sixth of the season, and further solidifies his place atop the regular season standings.
The Top Truckers at Lime Rock Park
Winner, Polesitter, Stage 1 & 2 Winner, Most Laps Led (99 of 100 laps), Fastest Lap (54.941 seconds, 100.253 mph): Corey Heim
Biggest Mover: Ben Rhodes (started 19th, finished fourth)
The Winning Move
Heim dominated the entire afternoon, and was poised to take the victory in a caution-free affair (sans stage breaks) until Matt Mills went off-track in turn 1 to bring out the first and only natural caution of the afternoon with just 11 laps to go.
On the restart, Layne Riggs inched ahead of Heim and looked to have the best shot all day to pass the No. 11, on the outside no less. However, the No. 34, as well as about half of the field behind him, overshot turn 1 and jumbled the field up entirely.
The only person who didn’t change position was Heim, who was able to clear the mess with the lead. As he was the fastest truck all day, he was still untouchable, winning his sixth race of the season.
Playoff Rundown
Three races remain until the playoffs, and three playoff spots remain available via points. Nobody without a win is safe in the playoffs just yet.
Heim has nearly a three-race lead in the regular season standings and has all but locked up the regular season championship — which comes with an additional 15 bonus points. As it stands, that would give Heim 54 points to carry throughout each round of the playoffs, while no one else would have more than 21 currently.
Back at the cut line, defending champion Ty Majeski sits with a 37-point gap over teammate Jake Garcia. At this point, as long as the final three in the playoffs on points (Kaden Honeycutt, Grant Enfinger and Majeski) don’t collapse in the final three races, anyone who sits outside the playoffs needs to start thinking about nothing more than wins in the final three races if they want a shot a the championship.
Rookie Report
Rookie of the Race: Where on earth did Gio Ruggiero come from? In the chaos of the final restart, Ruggiero was one of the drivers who took full advantage and sneaked through into the top five. By the time the checkered flag flew, Ruggiero sailed across the line in third. He stayed in it all day and remained poised even when those around him didn’t. For that, he earns this week’s Rookie of the Race.
No. 1 — Brent Crews (eighth)
No. 02 — Ben Maier (18th)
No. 2 — William Lambros (27th)
No. 5 — Toni Breidinger* (29th)
No. 07 — Thomas Annunziata (15th)
No. 7 — Jordan Taylor (20th)
No. 17 — Gio Ruggiero* (third)
No. 22 — Alex Labbe (34th)
No. 26 — Dawson Sutton* (30th)
Np. 32 — Dale Quarterley (32nd)
No. 33 — Frankie Muniz* (28th)
No. 62 — Wesley Slimp (33rd)
No. 66 — Cam Waters (fifth)
No. 77 — Andres Perez* (17th)
No. 81 — Connor Mosack* (16th)
*Denotes 2025 Rookie of the Year Contender
One Big Takeaway From This Race
Let’s not mince words. That race was … boring.
Like, really boring.
It wasn’t because Heim ran away with the entire day — don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. The No. 11 truck was on rails the entire day and was absolutely untouchable.
No, the issue with why the race was so boring is because drivers could not pass beyond the first few corners of a restart. Lime Rock is a bad fast racetrack, aided by its long, sweeping corners. Because of how much speed drivers can carry in the corners, there’s no heavy braking zones to allow a driver to set up a pass.
And for NASCAR, that’s a problem.
Stock cars (or in this case, stock trucks) are just too heavy to run around a long, sweeping, fast road course because there’s no big opportunity to pass. The lack of passing was worsened for the Truck Series because of the lack of competitive pit stops — when drivers made pit stops, they got to retain the position they entered pit road in, therefore not losing any positions (unless drivers stayed out).
Lime Rock doesn’t have much in the way of other configurations, but the two different track paths they do have require heavier braking, so it would be nice to see the Truck Series return next season and run a different configuration to see if running NASCAR at Lime Rock is even feasible going forward.
Because as it stands, the inaugural race was rather unimpressive. This, coming from an author who quite enjoys Lime Rock as a racetrack.
Talkin’ Truckers
Ben Rhodes (fourth), Cam Waters (fifth) and Josh Bilicki (seventh) detail their afternoons in northwest Connecticut:
Paint Scheme of the Race
As a general rule, gold and black always look good on a NASCAR race vehicle.
Exhibit A: Waters’ No. 66 ThorSport Racing Ford F-150.
With sponsorship from his own whiskey line, Waters Whisky, as well as TRADIE (which sponsored Waters in his two Truck Series starts last season), Waters made his 2025 Truck Series debut in a beautiful gold and black Ford. Gold make paint schemes feel important, and Waters’ truck certainly felt like a big deal in its design.
Waters qualified 16th and finished a very impressive fifth, as he was also a driver to take advantage of the final restart chaos.
Next Stop
We’re gonna be back home again in Indiana.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series gets nearly a month off of competition before returning on July 25 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Majeski is the two-time defending winner of the race and looking for three-in-a-row for his first win of the 2025 season.
Coverage for the TSport 200 begins at approximately 8 p.m. ET on Friday, July 25. Television coverage shifts to FOX Sports 1, while the all-new NASCAR Racing Network continues its exclusive season-long radio coverage of the Truck Series, which can be found on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Channel 90.
I too love Lime Rock. Friends of mine were going and I considered joining them, but after watching on TV I’m glad I passed.
Unfortunately, braking into Big Bend (turn 1) is usually the best spot to pass, with sometimes passing into the next turn, the Lefthander possible. You can rarely pass coming from the Newman straight into the Uphill (turn 5), and using the alternate inner loop at the Uphill doesn’t really help. The chicane wasn’t added to add another breaking zone, but instead it was placed there because too many fast cars were getting airborne exiting the Uphill. While entering the chicane does require more braking, I think to successfully pass there you really have to dive bomb the car ahead, which rarely turns out well.
I don’t know if using the alternate outer loop at West Bend would help, as I don’t think I’ve ever been there when it was in use. I know people have managed to pass at the Downhill, but it takes a big pair and a little luck to accomplish that.
What the answer is I don’t really know, but I’d hate to see NASCAR abandon Lime Rock.
Yeah, I don’t see Lime Rock as a fit for any of the top three series. And I’m one who tends to really enjoy road racing.
Upon watching the truck race, I was questioning whether any sort of “stock” car could put on a good event there. But, the ARCA event which followed was was quite good, and had quite a bit of passing. (Didn’t hurt that the two fastest cars were spun off on lap one, and then had to march through the field.)
It seemed the real issue is Lime Rock rewards engineering excellence (and variance) more than driving skill. Skill always matters, but the configuration doesn’t allow for elite skill to overcome a decent driver with similar equipment. Because the variance in equipment for top teams vs. teams which usually run around 20th in Cup, Xfinity, and trucks is not huge, the driver cannot make up enough difference to lead to much passing. I can’t imagine Xfinity or Cup putting on any better a show than trucks did.
I’d love to see one of the top series run an event at VIR. I know they don’t have the infrastructure for Cup, but I’d think they could handle trucks, and I’d expect a more interesting race than Lime Rock could deliver.