Corey Heim claimed another victory in his stellar Truck Series season, while CJ Greaves notched a landmark win in Michigan.
NASCAR
Corey Heim’s dominant Truck Series season continued, scoring his series-leading sixth victory of the season, and his fourth consecutive win on a road course in Friday’s race at Watkins Glen. The Regular Season Champion led three Toyotas in the top-four finishers as rookie Gio Ruggiero crossed the line in third, while Christopher Bell, who was subbing for the injured Stewart Friesen, stormed back through the field after a late-race pit stop for gas to finish fourth.
“I got behind in that last stage,” said Heim. “I was scratching and clawing trying to get back through the field. I had my brakes pretty much go out on me on that long green flag. I was beating them up trying get back through the field. Blew the bus stop, made a lot of mistakes myself. I feel like we’ve had a lot of them get away from us this year with cautions or part failures, but we finally had one go our way, and we had some opportunities to finish it off, and a couple more at the end for good measure. Huge thank you to TRICON Garage. This Mobil 1 Tundra was phenomenal. Thank you to Toyota – just everyone that is a part of this. Trevor (Bayne) and Blake (Koch) – they do a phenomenal job with my development. Just so many people to thank, so many people to keep impressing throughout the season. This helps us with the championship and that is our goal this year.”
- Corey Heim
Bell had a stellar final stage as he drove his Toyota Camry to the runner-up position in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race. Bell led four Toyota drivers inside the top-10 finishers with Chase Briscoe scored in fifth and 23XI teammates Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick coming home in eighth and ninth, respectively. Shane van Gisbergen was the race winner.
“I’m thrilled,” said Bell. “We’ve been struggling a little bit to find a rhythm. I feel like the car has been good, but executing the races has been tough for us. Really awesome to have a good day. Frustrated to get our butts kicked by the No. 88 (Shane van Gisbergen) car. He’s doing a really good job. That team has it going on. We need to find a little bit more, but certainly happy. It was a good day for DEWALT Camry.”
- Christopher Bell
Brandon Jones (ninth) led Toyota with a top-10 finish in an incident-filled NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday at Watkins Glen. Sam Hunt Racing also had a solid afternoon with two Supras – Kaz Grala (11th) and Dean Thompson (13th) in the top-15. Connor Zilisch won the race.
“I think when you look at all of these road courses that you go to, Watkins Glen is almost one of the easiest to drive, which I think just brings everyone so close together,” said Jones. “It just pulls the field so close together because the margin for error here is a lot bigger here compared to more of these technical tracks, so you just see more action, I guess, is the term for it. But just difficult to pass, and hard to get off line to make passes. I would get runs on people, and just couldn’t make much of it, and then I had three people behind me, hunting me down. It was just a difficult day for me to get momentum turned around. Given everything that went on today, glad that we got back to the top-10 in our Menards Supra.”
- Brandon Jones
OFF ROAD
CJ Greaves hit a milestone with his 200th Off Road win at Michigan’s Bark River International Speedway on Sunday.
FORMULA DRIFT
Jhonnattan Castro continued his career season in Formula DRIFT as he advanced to his third Final Four in six races to lead Toyota at Evergreen Speedway, just outside of Seattle. Matt Field was the event winner. With two races remaining, Fredric Aasbo sits second in the standings – 40 points out of the lead, while Castro is in sixth. Toyota is also in a fierce battle for the Auto Cup, sitting just two points out of the lead with two races remining.
ARCA
Brent Crews led the first 38 laps during ARCA’s race on Friday at Watkins Glen, but had a mechanical issue prior to the final restart and was forced to pit. Kris Wright, who finished third, was the top Toyota finisher.
XTREME OUTLAW
Jacob Denney took the lead late and went on to win the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series feature at Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway Saturday night, enroute to capturing the four-race Appalachian Midget Week title. Overall, Denney finished the week with two wins, a second and a third in the four Pennsylvania races. Denney kicked off the week’s activities with a dominating win on Wednesday at Action Track USA and then placed second on Thursday at Linda's Speedway. Friday night would see Denney's teammate Gavin Miller lead all 30 laps with Denney finishing third. Following Saturday's win, Denney has recorded a series record eight wins in 18 Xtreme events this season. He’s expanded his championship lead to over 273 points with just six races remaining.
WHAT’S NEXT
NASCAR heads to Richmond Raceway this weekend. On Friday, August 15, the NASCAR Truck Series closes its regular season at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, while the NASCAR Cup Series competes on Saturday, August 16 at 7:30 p.m. ET on USA.
The Toyota GR Cup has its fifth race weekend at Wisconsin’s Road America. The first race is on Saturday, August 16 at 3:05 p.m. ET, with race two on Sunday, August 17 at 1:45 p.m. ET. Both races can be seen live on GRCupSeries.com/watch-live.
Finally, the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series is back on track at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota. Final eliminations are on Sunday, August 17 at 3:00 p.m. ET on FOX.