For the fifth time in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, 23XI Racing added a fourth car at Bristol Motor Speedway, and on all five of those occasions, it has been development driver Corey Heim behind the wheel of the No. 67 Toyota.
Heim, who competes full-time for Tricon Garage in the Truck Series and comfortably leads the series in both points and wins, only entered the Bristol Night Race having made three Cup Series starts this year, as he failed to qualify for the Chicago Street Race back in early July. A mistake in qualiyfing gave him the first non-Daytona 500 DNQ for any Cup driver since November 2018.
But in two of Heim's four starts, he impressively beat out each of the three full-time drivers for the Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan-owned team. He pulled it off at Kansas Speedway in May with a 13th place effort, and he pulled it off again at Bristol by driving from 38th to sixth.
Corey Heim not competing in New Hampshire NASCAR Cup race
Heim's Bristol start came about late in the game, but he made the most of it. As of now, however, he does not have any further plans to compete in the Cup Series before the 2025 season concludes.
In fact, there are no part-time non-chartered (open) cars on the entry list for this Sunday afternoon's Mobil 1 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after there were three at Bristol.
The other two at Bristol were the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, which was driven by Austin Hill, and the No. 66 Garage 66 Ford, which was driven by Chad Finchum.
Heim's 2026 plans have not yet been confirmed. While plenty of fans have called for 23XI Racing to sign him full-time to replace the struggling Riley Herbst behind the wheel of the No. 35 Toyota alongside Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick, that does not appear likely to happen. Heim is likely to compete across several NASCAR national series, presumably with a full-time ride in one of them, just like this he has done this year.
Sunday's Mobil 1 301 is set to be shown live on USA Network from New Hampshire Motor Speedway starting at 3:00 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV now and catch all of the action from the "Magic Mile"!