Corey Heim trigger Kansas NASCAR pileup that collects Bubba Wallace, others

Making his season debut in the Cup Series for 23XI Racing, Truck Series regular Corey Heim came together with Justin Haley and triggered a crash that also eliminated teammate Bubba Wallace and and Austin Dillon from contention Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

23XI tried to repair the damage suffered to Wallace but it was too severe and the No. 23 was forced to accept a second straight 33rd place finish that dropped its driver from seventh to tenth in the standings, derailing a solid start to the season.

“Not sure if the 67 (Corey Heim) got into somebody, and I just tried to hang a left and stay in the gas and I got clipped in the right rear,” Wallace said. “It’s unfortunate. I hate it. It all stems back from our penalty earlier on. We tried so hard to fight back but it wasn’t meant to be. We had a lot of confidence coming into this race. Felt good about it yesterday, but just not our day. Not our last couple of weeks, but Happy Mother’s Day. Excited to get back home to see my wife and our baby boy and focus on that.”

Heim wasn’t entirely sure what happened.

“I don’t know who I wiped out there, and I don’t want to destroy any race cars, but I feel like I was squeezed there,” Heim said. “My goal was just to get down to the bottom and I saw (John Hunter Nemechek) peeking inside of me, and when you have someone on your left rear fender, it makes you tight and I had to flinch and caused a big wreck.

“I’d like to think I didn’t do anything wrong but I also haven’t seen it yet. I guess we’ll see.”

Heim went onto finish 13th, best amongst his team and in his season debut, spent mostly learning this radically different racing platform.

“I think from the very beginning I was trying to settle in. Such a different experience than my Truck Series regular style driving. Such a different approach with aero balance and trying to find clean air and trying to get grip. It is tough. We are at the top level, and I had to settle in. It has been about a year since I drove one of these things. First stage was messy to say the least. I went a lap down, but the team stuck with me and made really good adjustments, and we climbed back through the field all day. We kind of just made consistent steps forward. I’m super proud of everyone at 23XI, Toyota – very thankful for Robinhood for coming on board. The Robin Neon looked great out there running top-15 at the end. Just proud of the consistent progress, and team definitely stuck with me in the first stage. It wasn’t pretty on my part, but grateful for everyone believing in me and grateful for the opportunity.