‘I Knew We Were Good, But Not Top 5 Good’: Corey Heim Turns Daytona 500 Berth into Near Pole Run

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Corey Heim woke up on Wednesday morning (Feb. 11) nervous of whether or not he would qualify himself into the Daytona 500 in the night’s qualifying session.

But around 9:30 p.m. ET, there he was on the Daytona International Speedway pit road next to his No. 67 Toyota, staring at the scoring pylon as the cars went by. He was in first place, and with only four cars left to qualify, he had a real shot at winning the pole in only his first attempt.

Not bad for somebody that was worried about simply making the show.

“If you told me that at the beginning of the day, I’d be like, ‘Man, that’s impressive, you know?'” Heim told media post-qualifying. “I had no intention of making the second round. I mean, I had faith, but, realistically, looking at the last couple races, it was like, OK, we’re probably going to be in this area of the field, and we’re hoping to pray that the other upper cars are below us.”

Alas, Heim would end up qualifying fifth during the session, meaning he will have to race in Thursday night’s duel races to determine his final starting position for Sunday.

The silver lining? He will be in the Daytona 500, and even better, he’s pretty darn fast.

“I’m just super impressed with this 23XI [Racing] group,” Heim told Frontstretch. “I knew we were going to be good, but not top five good. That’s awesome on their part.”

Heim was the first car to make a qualifying run all night and the first open car — an entry not guaranteed to start the Daytona 500 — of eight to take to the track. His first lap was fast, too. So fast, in fact, that he remained in the top 10 and made into the second round of qualifying while the second fastest open car, Justin Allgaier, qualified right behind him to solidify his Daytona 500 entry.

Or so they thought.

The final open car, Corey LaJoie, qualified only 0.004 behind Allgaier. The three cars were within the top 10, meaning they would have to compete once again if they all made the second round. Heim, who had even been interviewed by the broadcast on his Daytona 500 berth, suddenly had go back on the attack again.

“That was something that caught me off guard,” Heim said. “I was kind of taking my deep breath, and then my own engineers come over and said if all three guys make the final round, you got to race it out. Holy crap, you know? Here you go again.”

However, with less than 10 cars remaining in round one, LaJoie was knocked out of the top 10 and the second round of qualifying. Heim could rest easy.

Job one, making the show, was complete. Job two, however, began.

As he left pit road in the second round, Heim recalled what shift points he needed to hit perfectly as he went through the gears into turn 1. Heim had been practicing in his head all day the cadence of when to shift for that very moment.

“I had to tell myself like 10 times before qualifying to remind myself of the RPMs and when to shift and stuff,” Heim recalled. “With the trucks, we have our RPM number. I’ve almost got to integrate it into my brain at this point. I don’t have to look at the dash. Like, I hear the RPM on my shift, you know? It’s so wired to me.

“But when you get into a new car, it tends to be different, and that’s kind of the case with qualifying gear and all the gears are different shit points, and it’s very specific.”

Heim completed a lap of 49.148 and went to the top of the charts in round two as the fourth car to take to the track out of 10. If everything went the same it did in the first round, he would the next car would be faster.

But the next car, Kyle Larson, wasn’t faster. In fact, Alex Bowman, who followed him, wasn’t faster, either.

Suddenly, as Heim looked on outside of his 23XI Racing Toyota, the crowd surrounding him began to murmur and smile. If at least three more cars posted slower times than him, he would have a guaranteed starting spot on the front row of stock car racing’s biggest event.

It would have been an incredible feat.

Unfortunately, as his team co-owner Denny Hamlin crossed the line, Heim watched as number was moved to second on the pylon. It moved again when Ryan Preece drove by afterward.

“I kind of knew that they were going to sneak up on us like that at the end,” Heim said. “Just with [Kyle Busch], he was super-fast. I mean, he was like two tenths better than us. I was pretty certain he was going to get us, and then everyone else was sort of a toss-up. I mean, you never know. You get a gust of wind down the backstretch for those guys, and a good one for us, and who knows? But I never really started thinking about it until those last three guys.”

It was no front row start, but to even be close after all the pressure he was feeling before, it’s a pretty good consolation prize.

“Top five is awesome for our guys,” Heim said. “It’s a great accomplishment to be able to come out here with an open car and qualify top five, and hopefully, we can keep up there.”