By David Morgan, Associate Editor
SAN DIEGO – The student has become the master, at least on Sunday at Naval Base Coronado as Corey Heim outdueled his 23XI teammate Tyler Reddick to capture his first NASCAR Cup Series win.
After a race-altering crash in Stage 2, it was shaping up to be a banner day for 23XI with Cup Series points leader Reddick running ahead of Heim, with two other 23XI cars in Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst lurking in the top-five.
Reddick and Herbst separated themselves from the rest of the field and appeared to be ready to settle it amongst the two of them with Reddick keeping his young phenom of a teammate at bay until three laps to go when Heim was able to make the winning move to the inside of Reddick to advance into the lead.
From there, it was Heim’s race to lose as he held onto the point for the final circuits of the race to write his name into the record books as a winner in the Cup Series in only his 13th career start – and to be the first to do so on the temporary street circuit built around this sprawling Naval facility.
COREY HEIM TO THE LEAD! pic.twitter.com/gD61uao21u
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 22, 2026
“I feel like for a while I thought he was kind of playing with me, but he was able to set the pace being the lead car. I was able to stick with him. I’m not really burning my stuff up,” Heim said as he replayed the battle for the win with Reddick.
“Five to go came. Time to put some pressure on him, see if I could get him to make a mistake. Sure enough he did. I think he ended up braking or something. I don’t know what happened to me.
“He doored me down there in five and gave me back to me. That’s something you don’t see every day. That’s a great teammate. I don’t know. Just crazy. It feels like a dream. I hope I don’t wake up from this dream.
“I don’t know. This is insane. So thankful for 23XI, Mobil 1, Toyota for this journey. I didn’t expect to come into my part-time season and win. Here we are. It’s crazy.
“Hasn’t even sunk in yet. I’m sure I’ll get emotional in a little bit, but it really hasn’t sunk in yet.”
The race also ended in a 23XI 1-2 with Wallace rebounding from an early race pit road penalty to finish in second, followed by Kyle Larson in third, Zane Smith in fourth, and A.J. Allmendinger rounding out the top-five finishers.
“I’m happy, but frustrated with second. Never thought I’d say that on a road course,” said Wallace. “There’s so much potential that’s left on the table for all of us.
“I’m frustrated, but I would be a total ass if I did not congratulate Corey. Super proud of him. He’s put in so much work behind the scenes, running sim, and him and I have a really good relationship. I beat him in qualifying, but he beat me today, so he’ll have that bragging right for a while.
“Happy for that group. Bootie [Barker, Heim’s crew chief] getting another win was really, really special. Great day for Toyota, great day for 23XI, appreciate all of the help getting me to where I’m at on road courses. And yeah, on to Sonoma.”
Reddick would have a tire go down in the closing laps, dropping him from a strong finish to 25th in the final rundown.
“We were involved in so much today, to even have a shot at it at the end was nice,” said Reddick. “Yeah, man, I thought I was going to be able to hold him off there and we just kind of struggled with tire life. Yeah, I got beat by our own stuff.
“We’ll try and figure this out. It definitely stings, but first and foremost, congratulations to Corey. I tried to battle back and overdid it. I really did, I ran him straight in the wall and that wasn’t right. I wasn’t going to pass him for the win that way, that’s for sure, especially a teammate.
“It’s a real shame. I don’t know if I cut the tire during, before, or after. I’m not sure. Really needed a good points day and had another bad one. We’ll try and scrape together and have a decent finish in Sonoma.”
Pole sitter and the favorite coming into the day, Shane van Gisbergen, finished the day in 38th place after getting caught up in a multi-car crash on Lap 31 along with his Trackhouse Racing teammate Connor Zilisch when Austin Hill triggered the crash in Turn 1, collecting a total of nine cars in the process and causing a red flag stoppage of nearly 10 minutes.
The NASCAR Cup Series will stay out west for another week, heading up the California coast to Sonoma Raceway next Sunday with the running of the Toyota Save Mart 350 at 3:30 pm ET on TNT/HBO Max.
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