Corey Heim’s last-lap pass on Ross Chastain earned him his first victory of the 2026 season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Darlington Raceway on Friday (April 20).
Heim was quiet for the better part of the race, but a late caution allowed him to put on scuff tires and drive through the field to capture the checkered flag.
“We had a set of scuffs laying and they were five laps fresher than everyone else’s.” Heim said post-race. “I was like, it’s worth a shot. I don’t think we can win with where we were at.”
“Sure enough, I feel like we made all the right moves. We went three-wide into three coming to the white and bombed off in there on Ross. I was shocked he gave me the bottom there with fresher tires. That was awesome, I had a blast. I love Darlington, I love racing and want to do more of it.”
Chastain led on the final restart but it wasn’t enough as he couldn’t hold off the hard-charging Heim.
“I have no idea what just happened.” Chastain said. “Coming to the checkered, [Brandon] McReynolds (Chastain’s spotter) said the [No.] 5 is there and he’s fast. I was like, yeah, that’s fine and he just drove by me, I had no idea. I think that’s on us as a whole that we didn’t catch that and of course, I would’ve run the bottom if I knew he was going to be close.”
Christian Eckes led laps early and collected a third-place finish. Kaden Honeycutt led 59 laps but fell short of victory, with Connor Mosack collecting a top-five finish in fifth.
Christopher Bell, Grant Enfinger, Gio Ruggiero, Daniel Hemric and William Sawalich completed the top 10.
Ben Rhodes brought out the first caution of the race, suffering a blown left front tire on the entrance to turn 1, with Sawalich spinning a couple laps later to bring out the second caution of the night.
With four laps left in the opening stage, Heim and Honeycutt battled for the lead before Eckes passed both drivers into turns 1 and 2. The move handed Eckes his first stage win of the season.
In stage two, Honeycutt flexed his muscle and took a dominant stage victory over Chastain in second and Ty Majeski in third.
Connor Jones caused a caution at the beginning of stage three after getting loose entering turn 1 and blowing a tire.
A caution followed with 26 laps to go for a multi-truck incident in which Layne Riggs drove across the nose of Majeski while also collecting the #44 of Andres Perez.
After taking the lead on the following restart, Carson Hocevar drove to the front of the field and held the lead until he blew a tire with five laps to go. Hocevar’s truck slammed into the outside wall, setting up an overtime restart.
Tyler Ankrum blew a tire on the ensuing restart, causing a multi-truck pileup and setting up a second overtime restart and an opportunity for Heim to capitalize on fresh rubber. The victory is the 24th triumph of Heim’s career.
Chandler Smith finished 17th but kept the points lead by 33 points over Honeycutt, who climbed to second. Riggs sits third in the standings with a 41-point deficit. Ruggiero and Majeski sit fourth and fifth with a 45 and 51-point deficit, respectively.
NASCAR Truck Series Results at Darlington
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series returns to Rockingham Speedway on Friday, April 3 with coverage beginning at 4:30 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.
Hilarious that TV called Christian Eckes a Cup regular coming down to truck for a race. How incredibly ignorant i s Fox and their illustrious announcing team. You would think one person would have looked up who Christian is, no Cup starts, one season in the O’Reilly series, nine years in Truck series with nine wins.