Corey Heim has this whole qualifying thing figured out at historical NASCAR race tracks. On Saturday at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Heim, who pilots the No. 11 Toyota Tundra for TRICON Garage, scored his second-consecutive NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series pole position. With the pole, Heim followed up his pole at Darlington Raceway a weekend ago.
Heim turned a 20.072 sec. lap, which equated to a 112.096 mph average around the 0.625-mile short track.
RELATED: NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Tyson 250 Starting Lineup
Heim, who now has two poles in 2023, is up to four poles in his brief NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career.
To score the pole, Heim had to knock Carson Hocevar from the provisional pole. Hocevar was the fastest driver in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series practice Friday at North Wilkesboro, and came up just shy of getting it done for the pole on Saturday.
While Heim and Hocevar will make up the front row for Saturday’s Tyson 250, Ty Majeski, William Byron, and Colby Howard will slot in positions three through five.
Bret Holmes impressed with a sixth-place qualifying run, which placed him ahead of Grant Enfinger, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Hailie Deegan, who rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event.
With Akinori Ogata and the No. 46 G2G Racing team withdrawing after a crash in Friday’s practice, we were left with 39 trucks battling for the 36 positions in Saturday’s starting field.
The three trucks that failed to lock into the race were the No. 75 Henderson Motorsports truck, driven by Parker Kligerman, the No. 33 Reaume Brothers Racing truck, driven by Josh Reaume, and the No. 6 Norm Benning Racing truck, driven by Norm Benning.
For Benning and the No. 6 team, just having the chance to make it onto the track for qualifying was nothing shy of a miracle. Benning was involved in a crash during Friday’s practice, and after the team stayed in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series garage until around 9:30 PM ET making repairs on Friday, the truck passed inspection on Saturday morning and Benning was able to make a run during qualifying.
Ultimately, the time wasn’t fast enough, but it was an impressive effort for the small team.
Qualifying Results: NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Tyson 250 at North Wilkesboro
