Toyota drivers Tyler Reddick and Corey Heim finish the NASCAR season strong, achieving top results, career-highs, and standout performances in the finale.
“I feel like we kept making our balance on The Beast Camry better and better all day – it was a bit telling in stage two here on that restart when we got to the 24 (William Bryon), 12 (Ryan Blaney) and the 22 (Joey Logano) – I wouldn’t say they were doing anything much different, but they were able to get away from us after a while,” said Reddick. “It was good year for us. Won in the right moments, just hoping for a little bit more of that magic today and wasn’t meant to be.”
- Tyler Reddick
Tyler Reddick and Corey Heim closed out their year with strong performances in the NASCAR season finale weekend.
NASCAR
Tyler Reddick closed out his second season with Toyota and 23XI with a sixth-place finish. The fourth-place finish in the final point standings is the best for Reddick and the team, while Reddick also established new career-highs in top-fives and top-10s. Joey Logano was the race winner and the NCS champion.
“Just got beat,” said Almirola. “Yeah, we just got beat. Congratulations to Justin Allgaier and everybody at JR Motorsports – Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., Kelly (Earnhardt Miller), all those guys. They’ve been phenomenal here over the years and he beat us.”
- Aric Almirola
Christopher Bell (fifth) led Toyota in Sunday’s race. The Oklahoma-native finished in the top-five in the standings for the third consecutive season, and led the series in top-fives (15) and top-10’s (23). Martin Truex Jr. closed out his full-time career with back-to-back pole positions and a 17th-place finish.
On Saturday, Aric Almirola drove from the 38th starting spot, in a back-up car after a practice incident, all the way through the field to a third-place finish – coming just one spot short of the winning the Xfinity Series owner championship for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team. Riley Herbst was the race winner, and Justin Allgaier claimed the title.
“I think the story of the night was no one had anything for the 98 (Ty Majeski),” said Heim. “They were above average all year, and then they show up to Phoenix and completely tore us up. I drove my guts out and did everything I could. I made a mistake getting out of line, but I drove back to the front and had another shot at him, but he just had two tenths in the bag at any point. I would go 110 percent and he was still two tenths faster than me. There is not much you can do about that. I feel like this is the best Safelite Tundra TRD Pro that we’ve had all year – even better than we dominated with, and we still had nothing for him. It is hard to be upset by that, just don’t know what I could have done better. Nothing to hang our heads about there. We had a great season in our TRICON Garage camp. We set career highs at pretty much everything we possibly could of for myself and the team and as an organization. Huge thank you to them and everyone at Toyota Racing and Safelite for all of their efforts. It sucks to come up short – we were the best truck all year, us and the 19 (Christian Eckes) and just got our ass kicked. It is what it is.”
- Corey Heim
It was another good run for Chandler Smith and Sheldon Creed as they closed out the season. Smith, who finished fifth, scored his series-leading 17th top-five finish of the season and finished fifth in final standings. Sheldon Creed finished seventh and earned his series-leading 23rd top-10. He was sixth in the final rankings.
Corey Heim battled through a mid-race penalty and drove through the field in Friday’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race, but couldn’t quite get to race winner and champion Ty Majeski in the closing laps. Heim’s impressive 2024 season included six victories and 18 top-10 finishes in 22 starts. He finished second in the final standings – improving on fourth from the 2023 season.
Toyota’s other Truck Series Playoff driver, Taylor Gray, closed out his full-time Truck Series run with a sixth-place finish. He also finished sixth in the final point standings.
ARCA WEST
Sean Hingorani won his second consecutive ARCA West championship on Friday afternoon. Hingorani drove with four different teams during his title run including closing the season with Venturini Motorsports. Four Toyota drivers earned top-five finishes in the season-ending race with William Sawalich (second), Hingorani (third), Gio Ruggiero (fourth) and Brent Crews (fifth).
What’s Next
NHRA ends its season at In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip this weekend. Final eliminations are on Sunday, November 17 on FS1 at 4:00 p.m. ET.