Given Riley Herbst's struggles during his rookie NASCAR Cup Series season with 23XI Racing, there had been speculation that he could be replaced after just one year behind the wheel of the No. 35 Toyota.
It is well-known that the primary appeal of Herbst is the built-in sponsorship he brings from his family's Terrible Herbst chain of gas stations, which includes but is not limited to major brands such as Monster Energy, but his results were simply not cutting it.
His best finish all year was 14th place, which was the worst best finish among all full-time drivers, and he finished 35th out of 36 full-time drivers in the standings. Teammates Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace both qualified for the playoffs.
Pay driver or not, these results were simply not sustainable for a team aiming to join the likes of Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske, and Joe Gibbs Racing as regular championship contenders.
Corey Heim has been waiting in the wings as the team's development driver, and many felt that he should have been in the No. 35 Toyota not just in 2026 but in 2025. Instead, he was spending his third full season at Toyota's Tricon Garage Truck Series team. After back-to-back Championship 4 appearances in 2023 and 2024, Heim won the 2025 title with a record-breaking 12-win season.
Corey Heim denied NASCAR Cup ride fans believe he should have had
He still didn't land the 23XI Racing promotion, as Herbst retained his seat. Heim instead ended up without a full-time ride of any kind in 2026. He is currently running part-time in a non-chartered (open) 23XI Racing entry, as well as part-time with Tricon Garage in in the Truck Series.
Herbst has improved slightly from 2025, but not nearly enough to justify an extension. Reddick has a massive points lead with a series-high five victories, and Wallace is in a solid position to, at the very least, get back to the playoffs. Herbst is still just 26th in the standings and nowhere near the playoff cut line with only one top 10 finish.
At some point, you have to believe Heim was going to get a better offer he could not turn down from somebody else – and not within the Toyota camp – if 23XI Racing didn't finally decide to make a change.
It's well-known that Heim and Ty Gibbs don't get along, and that is believed to be the reason why Heim was never offered a full-time Joe Gibbs Racing ride at any level. And the only other Toyota team in the garage is Legacy Motor Club, which is a clear step below Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing.
Bringing Herbst back would have made sense financially for 23XI Racing, to a certain degree, but bringing in Heim made sense from a racing standpoint.
Now 23XI Racing have finally made the right choice.
Heim is set to replace Herbst behind the wheel of the No. 35 Toyota in 2027. But as good of a move as this is on the surface, giving a driver of Heim's caliber the seat many believe he arguably should have already been in since the start of the 2025 campaign, perhaps the better element of it is that 23XI Racing have avoided letting him get away to a rival.
Because that's the scenario that was starting to feel inevitable, in the event that they had actually made the decision to bring Herbst back for a third year.
Sure, you never want to rush up a prospect, and we have seen time and time again that doing so comes back to bite all parties involved. We've even seen that this year with Connor Zilisch, to a certain extent. But this is a case in which it seems like the longer they waited, the more they were at risk of losing a driver with an immensely high ceiling.
By delaying his eventual full-time 23XI Racing arrival, Toyota could have found themselves in an extremely precarious spot. Fortunately for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, patience was indeed a virtue, and waiting too long didn't come back to bite both them and their manufacturer.
And for every prospect who supposedly gets "rushed" to the top level, there is another story of one getting away and having plenty of success elsewhere. William Byron, for instance, got away from Toyota after the 2016 season, when he nearly won the Truck Series championship with Kyle Busch Motorsports.
He went on to win the 2017 Xfinity Series championship with JR Motorsports before landing with Hendrick Motorsports in the Cup Series, where he made three consecutive Championship 4 appearances to wrap up the old playoff era and won back-to-back Daytona 500s in 2024 and 2025, following a six-win 2023 season.
With Heim, 23XI Racing have finally managed to eliminate the risk of letting a good one get away, and the 23-year-old Marietta, Georgia native is finally set to have the opportunity to prove why so many fans have long been begging for him to be promoted to Cup.
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