Corey Heim is a NASCAR Cup Series winner, taking the checkered flag in the inaugural event on Naval Base Coronado. Everybody expected last year's Craftsman Truck Series champion to find success at the top level, but perhaps not quite this fast.
Heim's win in only his 13th career Cup Series start is especially impressive given the struggles in recent years of fellow highly touted prospects such as Ty Gibbs and Connor Zilisch to adjust to Cup. But there is also something that separates him from the two of them, as well as from most others who come through NASCAR's lower ranks.
Heim developed in the Truck Series. Gibbs and Zilisch both skipped past that level and went straight to the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, a series in which Heim never competed for a full season.
Given the way the Cup Series' Next Gen car drives, is Trucks-to-Cup the way to go? It sure feels that way.
Team owners of top NASCAR prospects may want to rethink their development plan after Corey Heim's instant breakthrough
For many years, it was almost entirely unheard of for a NASCAR driver to jump straight to the Cup Series from the Truck Series. It happened a few times in the early 2000s with mixed results: it worked for Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards, but not so much for Brendan Gaughan or Travis Kvapil.
After David Reutimann in 2007, though, the next Trucks-to-Cup leap didn't come until Todd Gilliland in 2022. That was the same year the Next Gen car was introduced, and numerous drivers have pointed out that it drives more similarly to a NASCAR truck than it does the current vehicle used in the O'Reilly Series.
In the past few years, Gilliland has been joined by Front Row Motorsports teammate Zane Smith and Spire Motorsports' Carson Hocevar in the Trucks-to-Cup pipeline, and both have figured out the top level fairly quickly as they make waves with their respective organizations.
Now Heim is doing it for a better team than either of them compete for, and he's already found victory lane before he's even become a full-time driver.
The truth is becoming too obvious to ignore. In the Next Gen era, it is more beneficial for Cup Series prospects to develop in the Truck Series than in the O'Reilly Series.
While some fans will lose their minds over the idea of talents like Zilisch and potentially Corey Day being fast-tracked to Cup, demanding they spend 10 seasons in the O'Reilly Series until they're "ready", maybe we're looking at all of this completely backwards. They don't actually need to be running that series at all.
Heim wasn't. And in an age where the vast majority of young drivers take multiple years to figure it out in Cup, he's doing just fine.
Team owners everywhere should be taking notice. If you're developing a driver with high-end Cup potential, just have them run a couple seasons of the Truck Series.
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