INDIANAPOLIS — Corey Heim started Sunday by talking about being more aggressive on his restarts.
Then he showed everyone — including his team co-owner Denny Hamlin — what he'd learned.
The 24-year-old part-time NASCAR Cup Series driver first made a daring outside move to pass Hamlin then slow him down on the final restart with 35 laps to go, then held off the hard-charging cars of Christopher Bell and Joey Logano to capture his first Brickyard 400 title.
Heim beat Bell by 0.287 seconds and Logano, last week's race winner, by 0.972 seconds to become the first Cup driver to win twice in his first 15 career starts since 1965. A.J. Foyt, one of four four-time Indianapolis 500 champions, was the last to do it and, like Foyt, Heim didn’t even need a full-time ride to finish the job.
“Just had to be aggressive, man, it's for the win,” he said after his second win of the season. “I would have to see it back to see if I really did anything wrong. You know, he has every right to be frustrated with me, but don't get me wrong, I just had to be on top of it. Got to go quick for the 22 (Logano) to be in position, so thanks to him. Man, it's crazy.”
Hamlin seemed more frustrated with Bell's mistimed push, which allowed Heim to get past him, and that was all Heim needed to take charge. Hamlin wound up falling from first to fifth, a descent he never recovered from as his winless streak at Indianapolis hit 18.
It's the only crown jewel race of NASCAR's four Hamlin hasn't won.
“I mean everyone's trying to fight to win the race, and you know you're clear by an inch, you're going to take that inch,” Hamlin said. “It's really the 20 and (Bell) and the 19 (Chase Briscoe) not orchestrating good pushes there and we came detached for a long time. I thought the 20 was on board with giving us a push, it was just way too early before the restart zone.”
With Hamlin fading, Bell and Logano spent the final 34 laps trying to catch Heim's increasingly loose car. Each driver consistently closed the gap by running consistently quicker lap times. but neither could get close enough to try to pass Heim.
And with no more caution flags to bunch up the leaders, the stage was set for Heim.
“It's a good second place," said Bell, Hamlin's teammate with Joe Gibbs Racing. "We've had a lot of bad second-place finishes, but this is a good one with where we were after qualifying. When we had the restart on the second row, I was really happy with our position. Really proud of our team, we pulled together a really good day."
Heim wasn't the only big winner Sunday.
Hamlin extended his points lead over Heim's teammate, Tyler Reddick, who was 10th. Ty Gibbs, who is fourth in points, clinched a playoff spot with a stage win and a 12th-place finish. And Todd Gilliland of Front Row Motorsports defied the odds by collecting the $1 million prize in the final round of NASCAR's second In-Season Challenge.
But nobody was more satisfied with the results than Heim.
“That was a damn handful,” the Georgian said. “I was hanging on for dear life once the shade went down and the pace picked up. My car got really loose and I never really got a lot of clean air throughout the day, so that was the hardest I’ve ever fought in my life to make sure I focused on the exits and get through dirty air.”
Larson's drought
Defending Cup champ Kyle Larson's winless streak hit 36 on Sunday, this time the result of a flat left rear tire that sent Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 Chevrolet hard into the wall coming out of Turn 3 during the first stage. He was the first car out and finished 39th.
“We just had a tire let go. I wouldn’t say pushing had anything to do with it," Larson said. “Just a little bit of bad luck, I guess.”
Larson has finished 39th, 15th, 34th and 34th over the last four weeks and is in the longest winless drought since he joined Hendrick's team in 2021. Yet Larson is still in eighth in points with four regular-season races remaining.
Surprise payday
Ryan Blaney's streak of consecutive top-11 finishes ended at 11 on Sunday and came with a hefty cost — missing out on the $1 million payday.
The 2023 Cup champ and Team Penske driver started and stayed ahead of Gilliland most of the race, only to see his hopes unravel when he was collected in a nine-car crash that damaged the right side of his car with 41 laps to go. Blaney's team got him back on the track and he wound up 26th, but finished two spots behind Gilliland.
Up next
After 16 straight weeks of racing, the Cup drivers will get a break to open August. The series then heads to Iowa's 0.875-mile oval Aug. 9. William Byron is the defending race winner. Blaney was the 2024 winner, a night race marred by tire problems.
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