Corey Heim sat in a NASCAR Cup Series car for the first time Saturday when he took the No. 43 Toyota Camry on track for practice at Dover Motor Speedway.
Heim is unexpectedly making his debut as he substitutes for Erik Jones, who was injured last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. Heim is the reserve driver for Legacy Motor Club and 23XI Racing, and Jones is on a week-by-week basis as to when he returns from a compression fracture of a lower vertebra.
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“There is just a long list of men and women at Legacy Motor Club that have helped me get prepared for this race,” Heim said. “I would be lying to you if I wasn’t a little nervous about it because I’ve never sat in one of these cars before, but my job is to do the best I can for this 43 group until Erik comes back.”
Heim would be in the car next weekend at Kansas Speedway if needed. The 21-year-old Heim is a full-time competitor in the Craftsman Truck Series for TRICON Garage.
“Working with Legacy Motor Club since the start of the year has given me a little bit of a head start, I guess, for this week,” Heim said. “You never expect something like this to happen, but at least being able to talk to Dave (Elenz, crew chief) and the other two teams at Legacy Motor Club and being able to start those relationships at the beginning of the year and kick-start this week a little bit better for me. It’s been a pleasure for sure — just getting the virtual seat time in a Cup car has helped me for sure, and being able to tune on the simulator side of things this year.
“I didn’t really get to dive too deep into things this week, but I think the three or four days that I got in preparation and leaning on all of the drivers at Legacy Motor Club to be as ready as I can is the biggest thing for me. I will definitely learn a lot in the next couple of hours, but I think the last three or four days have been really beneficial for me versus over not getting a heads-up. That would have been a lot tougher, for sure.”
Jones has been involved with the team all week and is present at Dover. The advice Jones has been giving has already been “crucial” to Heim, who only had 20 minutes of practice in the car. Jones has also talked to Heim about setting realistic expectations about completing all of the laps in the Wurth 400.
“I think for us, we are just going to try to take it one step at a time,” Heim said. “We’ve got the 20-minute practice and then qualifying. We are going to take it stage by stage there. It is certainly not going to be easy, but it is a longer race than I’ve been accustomed to with the Trucks and the Xfinity stuff, and I also have the Xfinity race (Saturday afternoon) as well to kind of lean on as well. I’ve got the time this weekend to sort of figure it out.
“I don’t know if I will feel that I’ve got it figured out by the end of the weekend, but any advice is super important. I’ve been reaching out to as many people as I possibly can to try to gather all of the information and try to have a decent idea. With these 20-minute practices, it is pretty brutal to wrap your head around a completely different kind of race car within that time frame, but my job is just to do the best I can for this 43 group and move forward from there.”
Heim was 31st fastest in practice but said he had fun and learned his limit quickly. The longer he ran, however, the more Heim felt he was getting warmed up to the Cup Series car.