It doesn’t matter if it’s a brand-new racetrack; Corey Heim and TRICON Garage continue to be the driver and team to beat every single week in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Heim will be leading the field to green for Saturday’s LiUNA! 150, the inaugural NASCAR Truck Series event at Lime Rock Park, after laying down the quickest lap that the Connecticut-based road course has seen all weekend long.
The Marietta, Georgia-native catapulted his No. 11 Safelite Toyota Tundra TRD Pro to the top of the speed charts in the final moments of Saturday morning’s qualifying session, dethroning Jordan Taylor, a four-time champion of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
With an incredibly quick lap time of 53.115 seconds, Heim was the first (and so far the only) driver to exceed the 100mph barrier on the 1.478-mile road course this weekend, clocking in with an average speed of 100.175mph.
As the final minutes of the session clicked off, the fight for the pole came down to Heim and road course ace Jordan Taylor, who made a slight mistake on his second qualifying lap, costing the Spire Motorsports driver the pole in his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut.
“I think if [Jordan Taylor] had a mistake-free lap, we were probably going to be in second there. My first lap out was actually really good, I think it was just a matter of the tires coming up to temp the second time,” Heim said. “I was actually really sloppy on the lap, I ended up putting down that got us the pole. I thought my first lap was better, but like I said, the tire grip wasn’t there on the first run.”
In securing another pole position, the 10th of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career, Heim becomes just the 13th driver to reach double-digit poles in the series, and the 10th to secure double-digit poles AND wins.
STARTING LINEUP: 2025 NCTS LiUNA! 150 at Lime Rock Park
“I mean, I’ll take it,” Heim added. “I missed a couple of gears, missed a couple of shifts that last lap, but it just shows the speed of our Tundra today.”
Jordan Taylor, making his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut in the No. 7 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, will start from the outside of the front row for Saturday’s 100-lap contest.
Layne Riggs, winner of the most recent event for the series at Pocono Raceway, will start third, with Ty Majeski, and 17-year-old Brent Crews rounding out the top-five starters for the event.
Kaden Honeycutt, Rajah Caruth, Connor Mosack, Chandler Smith, and Andres Perez De Lara rounded out the top-10 in qualifying. De Lara, driving the No. 77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, was the quickest of the drivers in Group A.
Other notable drivers include Daniel Hemric (11th), Gio Ruggiero (12th), Grant Enfinger (14th) despite an issue in his group, Tyler Ankrum (15th), Jake Garcia (17th), Ben Rhodes (19th), and Stewart Friesen (22nd).
Jack Wood, driver of the No. 91 for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, was the only driver who failed to turn a lap around Lime Rock Park in Saturday’s group qualifying session, and thus, will start 34th.
