July 30, 2025
Back in 2020, in the days just before COVID-19 changed the world, there was a spotlight shone on the Truck Series (I can’t remember what they were calling it back then, can you?). Normally, this might have been a good thing. What a lot of people don’t realize is just how entertaining the Trucks can be, when they are allowed to be. They don’t draw as much as the Cup Series and often get the short end of the resources when it comes to NASCAR’s marketing.
However, the list of Cup drivers who first found success in the Truck Series is, to borrow a quote from Jim Cornette (about injuries inflicted in Skywalkers matches), “a list as long as my arm,” from Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle to Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace. To say nothing of those like Ron Hornaday and Matt Crafton and (possibly) Ben Rhodes who spent the majority of their NASCAR careers competing behind the wheel in the Truck series.
Still, the Truck Series has always been a distant third (how distant is a matter of personal opinion) in the grand NASCAR scheme.
That temporarily changed in 2020 when Kyle Busch was doing Kyle Busch things, which is to say heading down to dominate the lower series in what Joey Logano once termed “a very special car.”
While this is a damaging scenario that has been allowed to play out since the start of both the Xfinity and the Truck Series, someone got the bright idea to conjure up “The Bounty.” For a few seconds there, it seemed like there might have been a positive. The idea seemed to give the series regulars a shot at some big bucks (courtesy of Kevin Harvick and Marcus Lemonis, CEO of Camping World) for proving they could hang with Kyle Busch.
Turns out that part of “The Bounty” was quickly squashed. It soon became a challenge for OTHER CUP DRIVERS to come down and try to defeat Kyle Busch. The move was tantamount to NASCAR telling the teams, the drivers, the fans and perhaps most importantly in NASCAR’s current financial situation, the sponsors that there was no series regular who could possibly compete with Kyle Busch. Talk about creating second class citizens.
In the end, Chase Elliott came down from the Cup Series, won the race at Charlotte and the $100 grand. Every other driver, including eventual champion Sheldon Creed and runner-up Zane Smith, among others, was treated as an afterthought. You can imagine what a potential sponsor must think when they’re contemplating investing in a driver in the series.
Sponsor: You keep talking about Kyle Busch, can I sponsor him?
NASCAR: LOL! No, Kyle’s got all the sponsorship he needs. But there are some
Sponsor:
(Give credit to Chris Larsen, owner of Halmer Friesen Racing who offered a $50,000 bonus to any Truck series regular who finished ahead of Busch in the race. I also won’t knock Lemonis too much because he spent a lot of his own money to sponsor those drivers who needed it.)
Fast-forward to 2025 and there’s another opportunity that has arisen for NASCAR to make it right and prove to the world (especially those willing to spend money on NASCAR) that there are some drivers who can do more than just fill the field while the Cup drivers get their egos stroked.
Corey Heim won the Fresh from Florida 250 at Daytona (after Parker Kligerman failed post-race inspection) to start the 2025 Craftsman Truck Series season and has added four more wins, almost a third of the season. (That percentage gets higher when you consider three of the races were won by Cup drivers.) Through the first 16 races (up to last weekend’s race at IRP), he’s had 10 top 5 finishes.
Corey Heim is the type of driver that a storyline about a bounty should be developed around. Have a Kyle Busch, a Kyle Larson or even a Carson Hocevar (the three Cup drivers with Truck wins this year) say that they’ve heard about the success of Heim and want to test their skills about this young and up-and-coming driver (who has already been tabbed by 23XI Racing to be their reserve and developmental driver). Unfortunately, the likes of Busch, Larson and Hocevar are promoted as just being there for extra seat time, as if the entire series has been built as a couple hundred laps of Cup series practice.
And, instead, outside of the Truck broadcasts, the name Corey Heim is rarely mentioned. There’s been no attempt by NASCAR, as a whole, to further showcase this kid who could be the next big star on the horizon.
Thankfully, the racing gods seem to have thrown NASCAR a bone in the form of Layne Riggs. Layne Riggs is to the Truck Series what Kaulig Racing (at least for a moment a few years ago) was to the Xfinity Series. He was not even a blip on the radar a year ago. He came out of nowhere. He went from mostly mid-pack results to winning back-to-back races at Milwaukee and Bristol. In 2025, he has two wins (Pocono and IRP) and eight top-5s. According to NASCAR.com, he is third in the points, with Chandler Smith in between in second.
Smith is another good story in the Truck Series. He’d been heading upwards, going from a couple of rides in the Xfinity Series with Sam Hunt Racing in 2022 to full-time rides with Kaulig Racing in 2023 and Joe Gibbs Racing in 2024. Despite finishing fifth in the Xfinity Series last year (with wins at Phoenix and Richmond), JGR decided that wasn’t good enough and Smith was without a ride.
He headed down to the Truck Series and found a home with Front Row Motorsports (ironically, the same team that Riggs drives for) and has a win at Bristol and four top 5s (but 12 top 10s).
While Heim is obviously the favourite for the championship in 2025, he’s got (at least) two worthy contenders to that title that will surely spark some fierce battles over the course of the playoffs. There is no need to engrave Heim’s name on the trophy just yet as Riggs and Smith (to say nothing of Daniel Hemric and Grant Enfinger and others) will certainly have something to say about this.
See, these are the stories NASCAR should be telling about the Truck Series. With his ties to 23XI and their ties to Joe Gibbs Racing, Corey Heim might just be the next big star in the sport. (Of course, we said this about Zane Smith and he got shuffled to a mid-level Cup ride and forgotten about. Same with Noah Gragson. Same with Erik Jones.) Even if the road to a Cup ride takes longer for Chandler Smith or Layne Riggs, their reputations will be enhanced by people (and people being future team owners, fans and potential sponsors) remembering that they battled Heim (and perhaps even beat him) for the Truck Championship.
The future of NASCAR is in the rivalries between series regulars who could be the future of the sport, not marketing Cup Series regulars as dominating lower-rung divisions. A rivalry (albeit friendly and professional) between young stars is what the Truck Series – and NASCAR – needs.
johnmilner.ca 