Corey Heim Just Became the First Part-Time Driver Ever to Win the Brickyard 400
Racing a partial Cup Series schedule ahead of a full-time 2027 move, the 24-year-old Truck Series champion led a race-high 58 laps and held off Christopher Bell by 0.287 seconds — the second-youngest winner in the race's history, behind only Jeff Gordon.
Corey Heim won the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, driving the No. 67 Field & Stream Toyota for 23XI Racing in just the 15th Cup Series start of a part-time schedule he's running ahead of joining the series full-time in 2027. Starting seventh, the 24-year-old led a race-high 58 laps across four separate stints — more than any other driver in the field — on his way to his second career Cup win.
The decisive move came on a restart on lap 127, when Joey Logano helped shove Heim past leader Denny Hamlin off Turn 1. Heim held the point for the final 34 laps under pressure from Christopher Bell, who closed to within 0.164 seconds with two laps to go before Heim pulled back away, crossing the line 0.287 seconds ahead. The top five ran Heim, Bell's No. 20 Rheem Toyota, Logano's No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, Chase Briscoe's No. 19 Mobil 1 Toyota, and Hamlin's No. 11 National Debt Relief Toyota — all three of the Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske cars behind him unable to find a way back around. Carson Hocevar won the pole in the No. 77 Ziegler Auto Group Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, his first Brickyard pole.
The win is historic on two counts. Heim is the first part-time driver ever to win the Brickyard 400, and at 24 he's the second-youngest winner in the race's history — younger only than Jeff Gordon, who won it at 23 in 1994, also in his first Brickyard start. Heim, the reigning 2025 Craftsman Truck Series champion from Marietta, Georgia, had already won once this season in a partial Cup slate, at the street race outside Naval Base Coronado in June.
"This is a dream come true, winning at the Brickyard. That was unbelievable," Heim said afterward. Asked about holding off Bell in the closing laps, he didn't undersell how close it was: "That was a damn handful. I was hanging on for dear life once the shade went down and the pace picked up."
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