Information By: TOYOTA GAZOO RACING – BRISTOL, TN – Corey Heim battled for the win late before finishing third in the NASCAR Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday evening.
Heim, who is the only Truck Series driver to lead in every race this year, overcame a right rear tire going down in the early portion of the race and stormed back through the field. The Toyota Development Driver continues to lead the point standings after his fourth top-five and fifth top-10 run in the first six races of the season.
Fellow Toyota Development Driver Gio Ruggiero extended his lead in the Rookie of the Year battle as the 18-year-old’s 10th-place run put two Tundras in the top-10 finishers.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (NCTS)
Bristol Motor Speedway
Race 6 of 23 – 133.25 Miles, 250 Laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Chandler Smith*
2nd, Kyle Larson*
3rd, COREY HEIM
4th, Tyler Ankrum*
5th, Ben Rhodes*
10th, GIO RUGGIERO
18th, TANNER GRAY
25th, TONI BREIDINGER
26th, JUSTIN CARROLL
27th, STEWART FRIESEN
29th, PATRICK STAROPOLI
32nd, BRANDON JONES
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
COREY HEIM, No. 11 Safelite Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, TRICON Garage
Finishing Position: 3rd
Can you talk about the issues you faced and how you rebounded?
“Yeah, it just got us behind from the start. I thought we fired off really free there but ended up having a right rear going down and adjusted based on that thinking it was the balance of the truck. We made it way too tight there – not knowing that the right rear was down, no fault to my guys. Just kind of part of it – and we never had a chance to come down and adjust again. Just got behind there in the beginning, but really proud of the rally. I thought once we got down there to 17th or 18th, it was going to be really tough to come back through the field, but we were able to do it. Almost had a shot at it – just lit the tires there on the last restart. Definitely unfortunate, but thankful for TRICON Garage, Toyota and Safelite for everything they do.”
BRANDON JONES, No. 1 University of Arkansas College of Engineering Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, TRICON Garage
Finishing Position: 32nd
What happened there from your perspective?
“I was hauling butt until I wasn’t. These guys did a really good job bringing a really fast No. 1 TRICON Toyota truck to the race track. I had my Razorbacks on the hood – I wanted to give them a good finish, and I thought I was going to. We had a really fast race truck. We started 13th and drove to the top-five pretty easily there in the first stage. We caught lap traffic early – I figured, this place is notorious for that, catching lap traffic and being diligent passing them. It kind of looked like Frankie (Muniz) was undecided where he was going to go. You have to commit man. (Ty) Majeski just had to commit to a lane, and it looked like Frankie did really prepare for it and turned across his nose. It is unfortunate – it took out three really nice good trucks that were going to compete for the win. I hate that, but we got some laps at least. That was my goal. Really needed all of them. I wanted to see how this track was going to trend tonight – how it was going to migrate. People looked kind of unsure of what that compound was going to do at the start of the race, and I just drove in it and committed to it, and found a lot of grip, and a lot of speed. I think that was some of the reason we had some success there towards the beginning of the race, just committed to the grip really early there and found some lap time. I wanted to get these guys a good finish – they really worked hard on this race truck all week long. I keep telling David Gilliland (partner, TRICON Garage) that I’m going to get him a win in this truck. This was going to be a shot tonight, but sometimes this stuff happens and it doesn’t work out.”