Heim Hands Chastain Defeat in Darlington

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Corey Heim handed Ross Chastain defeat at Darlington in the final turn of Friday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.

Heim used newer, scuff tires to come charging from ninth to first in the second overtime, picking up his first win of a hodgepodge 2026 campaign in a way that surprised Chastain.

"I don't know what just happened," Chastain told FOX Sports 1, astonished.

Heim dove underneath Chastain in the final corner after Chastain's spotter told him Heim was coming quickly. Chastain didn't think anything of it and vastly underestimated how fast he'd be, as he left the bottom open in turn three and gave Heim the room he needed to speed by.

Heim's win is the 24th of his Truck career. Of those wins, 13 of them have come this season and last. Yet, the 23-year-old phenom is out of a full-time ride this year, save for a sponsor coming onboard -- like they did three weeks ago for Friday's race.

"I didn't know I was gonna have this ride until three weeks ago when the sponsor came onboard," Heim said. "I wanna be racing these things more."

Heim led three times for 28 of the 157 laps run, slightly less than Chastain who led three times for 35 laps.

No one led more than Kaden Honeycutt, who took his red No. 11 TRICON Toyota to the front four times for 59 laps. Honeycutt had a great points night, finishing second in stage one and winning the second stage. However, he settled for fourth after losing the lead to Carson Hocevar with 20 laps to go.

Honeycutt wasn't impressed with how Hocevar  raced him.

" ," Honeycutt said.

From Honeycutt's view, you could say karma came back to bite Carson Hocevar pretty quickly. Hocevar was leading with four laps to go with sparks flying from underneath his truck as Chastain tried to pounce on his increasingly-poor-handling truck. 

All of a sudden, in turn one, Hocevar's truck didn't turn and hit the wall. 

After leading 16 laps and finishing seventh in stage, Hocevar settled for 22nd.

Up front, the top-10 finishers were as follows:

Corey Heim, Ross Chastain, Christian Eckes, Kaden Honeycutt, Connor Mosack, Christopher Bell, Grant Enfinger, Gio Ruggiero, Daniel Hemric, William Sawalich. 

Layne Riggs finished 12th after getting fourth and eighth in the stages. A crash on lap 122, involving Riggs, Andres Perez and Ty Majeski, took Majeski. He finished 31st after getting sixth and third in the stages.

While race winner Corey Heim isn't scheduled to race the full schedule this season, he is in contention for the Chase after Darlington. He sits eighth in points, 73 points behind the leader and 16 points above the cutline to make the postseason.

Chandler Smith leads the points standings by 33 over Kaden Honeycutt. The top 20 in Truck points is as follows: