The inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Naval Base Coronado also saw a first-time winner on June 21, as Corey Heim earned the victory in 23XI Racing’s No. 67 via a 10-second lead.
The win marked Heim’s first in the Cup Series in his 13th start. It’s also the No. 67’s first victory in the series.
Heim rose to the occasion when it came down to a late battle between him and teammate Tyler Reddick. He lurked behind the No. 45 for majority of the laps after the final restart, until Reddick made a mistake in turn 2 that allowed Heim to sneak by him in the following corners of the track.
Reddick slid into Heim in turn 5 after going for an aggressive crossover but he allowed the No. 67 to maintain the lead after the contact.
“A lof of respect for him,” Heim told Prime post-race. “He doored me down there into (turn) 5, I think, and he gave it back to me. That’s something you don’t see every day, great teammate.”
“I tried to battle back and over did it, I really did,” Reddick said. “I ran him straight into 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.”
Reddick went on to blow a left-front tire that dropped him to a 25th-place finish while Heim’s path to victory was unobstructed.
“It feels like a dream,” Heim said. “I hope I don’t wake up from this dream.”
Bubba Wallace overcame a lost tire in stage one to finish second, while Kyle Larson was the highest-finishing Chevrolet in third.
Zane Smith and AJ Allmendinger rounded out the top five, while Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, Riley Herbst, Ryan Blaney and Michael McDowell completed the top 10.
The race became a wide-open landscape for the win once an incident on lap 32 took out three of the favorites of the weekend. Austin Hill went wide into turn 1 on the restart and pushed Connor Zilisch into the wall, which triggered a multi-car pileup that took out the pair and road course expert Shane van Gisbergen. The trio had been the top three at the time.
Beyond the top 10, tempers flared on pit road post-race between Kevin Magnussen and Noah Gragson. The pair had a run-in during the race that saw Gragson spun off the nose of the No. 91, which ended his day.
Gragson had a lot to say about open-wheel drivers coming into NASCAR when asked about the incident during the race.
“Felt like we’re making progress and these open wheel guys, they get fenders on their cars, they get bumpers and we’re running 30th and they’re driving up the inside barreling it up on the inside,” Gragson told Frontstretch. “We could all outbrake each other, but they’re pinballing it.”
“I mean, he was playing a bit stupid out there,” Magnussen added. “He could have had a good race but he chose not to.”
“I just wanted to know what his fucking problem was,” Gragson said. “He said, ‘fuck off, mate.'”
Cup Coronado Results
It’s two straight road course weekends for the Cup Series, as it’ll visit Sonoma Raceway next weekend, June 28, for the Toyota / Save Mart 350. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. ET via TNT.
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