NASCAR and post-race confrontations… Name a better duo than that! The sport has been full of personalities and strong ones at that. Among them was the late great Dale Earnhardt, who was known as the Intimidator. On the race track, he was pretty much a menace and the bane of many drivers. Since then, there have been very few personalities that could even come close to him. Not for the lack of trying, as Denny Hamlin’s protégé Corey Heim tried to emulate Dale Earnhardt.

Earlier at the North Wilkesboro Speedway, Heim was competing in the Truck Series race. Along the way, he had an on-track tussle with Layne Riggs, which squandered his chances of a win. Naturally, the young driver was furious and went to confront Riggs afterwards.

Plenty of words were exchanged between the drivers, but they did not come to blows. At most, Heim stormed up to Riggs and gave him a piece of his mind. However, fans were not convinced by the performance and did not hesitate to call him out on it. Heim’s anger was justified because he has been in fine form in 2025 and was hunting for another Truck win.

What happened to the protégé of Denny Hamlin at North Wilkesboro?

The NASCAR Truck Series race at North Wilkesboro was its usual chaotic self. Things got to a point where the race had gone into overtime and the drivers were restarting after the latest caution. Heim was in the lead, but Riggs was right on his tail, and looking threatening. Then the latter dived down the inside of the race leader and went wheel-to-wheel.

Unfortunately, that was when things went wrong, because the Denny Hamlin backed driver, was punted into a spin. That was enough to see him lose a bunch of positions and ultimately finish in 17th place. Meanwhile, Chandler Smith took advantage of their dueling to sneak past the two of them, into the lead and win. This marks Smith’s third win of the 2025 season. Though it is an unofficial one because this was the Truck Series’ own version of the All-Star race.

NASCAR Fans Were Not Impressed With Heim’s Intimidation

Remember what we said about Dale Earnhardt being the Intimidator? Well, Corey Heim tried his best impression of that, but he was no Dale Earnhardt. Many NASCAR fans reacted to Heim’s post-race confrontation with Layne Riggs and had a lot to say about that scene. One fan said on Reddit, “Heim had to be rehearsing that in his head.” Meanwhile, another person sarcastically said, “I feel like Heim could be a closeted serial killer. Someone is gonna “take care of you””

Others commented, “Oh no, Heim going to put ants into Riggs’ potato salad”. Someone else also observed and thoughts something looked familiar, “Heim sounded like one of those videos that would be sent to you in the NASCAR Heat games.” More people commented on the cringiness of the scene, “Had to walk past 5 if laynes crew members trying to look big and bad. The drivers are so soft now.”

Another important observation was, “Interesting that Heim didn’t even pause long enough to hear a response from Riggs.” Clearly, the Denny Hamlin protégé wanted to just say his piece and be done with it before he did something he would regret.