“I don’t care if I was on hundred-lap tires, nobody was going to beat me tonight,” Corey Heim asserted after winning in Phoenix. The 2025 Craftsman Truck Series champion was indeed unbeatable at the finale. He led a race-high 100 of 161 laps and overcame a restart where Heim was buried in 10th place. With four fresh tires, he beat defending series champion Ty Majeski in a second overtime.

Clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, Corey Heim finished the 2025 project with a championship. However, crowning his 12-win season came with a lot of tension. That had been piling up for not one, but two long years – and it reached its peak in the 2025 season.

Corey Heim almost folded under pressure

Almost two weeks have passed since NASCAR’s championship weekend, but the emotions are intact. That is especially true for Corey Heim, who is still recovering from the enormous stress that the title run involved. He told NASCAR Live, “I had so much pressure and stress in that race knowing that we had such a great year so far, and everyone is…whether we had zero wins or 11 wins, at the end of that race, we were gonna win that championship. That was the goal at the beginning of the season. To not leave with one would be pretty heartbreaking and crushing for us.”

Cameras and microphones surrounded Corey Heim throughout the 2025 season. He had the burden of moving on from his previous heartbreaks. He lost the 2023 championship due to a late-race tangle with Carson Hocevar, and he got his “teeth kicked in last year by the [No.] 98” of Ty Majeski. Losing it a third time in a row, in a season where he clinched 11 trophies en route to Phoenix, would have stung more. So Heim said, “Being able to get it done and enjoying it in a fashion like that built up all that stress on that last restart. Take a deep breath and say we did it. It was definitely a pretty big relief, no doubt.”

The 23-year-old Tricon Garage driver shattered several records. These included most wins (12), most top fives (19), laps led (1,625), and most races with a lap led (did so in every race). That equates to a 48% win percentage while leading over 41% of all laps run in 2025.  Corey Heim toppled Greg Biffle’s record of 9 wins set in 1999. Then, Heim finished the season with a record 1,625 laps led, eclipsing the mark of 1,533 set by Mike Skinner in 1996.

And Corey Heim saluted his team’s hard work for alleviating his stress and crowning the season. “It takes a full team, and having everyone on the roster helped me fire off on all cylinders. If I drove any of the other trucks, I feel I wouldn’t have had the success that I did,” he said.

Evidently, it was a season to savor for Corey Heim. Meanwhile, he is looking forward to his future – and his peers’ futures as well.

Placing Trucks at par with Cup

Corey Heim is under contract as a 23XI Racing development driver. Although he will compete in several Cup Series races in 2026, no final number has been released yet. The NASCAR lawsuit is currently a thorn in his future ambitions. Nevertheless, Heim remains optimistic about how well the Truck Series has prepared him for NASCAR’s premier tier. His former rival, Carson Hocevar, offers prime evidence for that. Hocevar attained the 2024 Cup Series Rookie of the Year honors.

Corey Heim observed how Trucks are most similar to Cup cars, as compared to Xfinity. “I think the trucks are probably the most similar to Cup cars. I’ve driven all three. From a vehicle perspective, I think it definitely resonates the most when you’re trying to develop to be a hopeful Cup driver like myself. Xfinity is great, too.” He continued, “You’re comparing apples to oranges at the same time. You race a lot more on the Xfinity side. They’re a little tougher to drive at the end of the day. When you want to go Cup racing, you have to come to the truck.”

With Corey Heim’s future in the balance, let’s wait and see what unfolds.