How Toyota developed Corey Heim

There is a Corey Heim story that Toyota's Trent Rodriguez likes to tell.

The manufacturer established the GR Cup series a few years ago, and has had many guest drivers come to experience it. Most of them treat it as a vacation from their regular racing series and don’t necessarily figure out the new environment, settling for a top-20 finish. 

“We’re kind of OK with that, but with Corey, he doesn’t necessarily like that at all,” Rodriguez, whose title is manager, driver development, of TRD U.S.A., said. “Immediately, he was taking it the same as if he were in a truck race or somewhere else. I think that shows the level of effort he puts in and why he keeps improving.”

Heim is one of the biggest prospects to come out of Toyota in recent years and will be full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series next season with 23XI Racing. Along the way, he’s won in nearly everything he’s sat in, including setting records en route to the 2025 Craftsman Truck Series championship. 

Last month, in his 13th career Cup Series start, while running a limited schedule, he won at San Diego. It is expected to be the first of many in his career.

“When he was younger, he wasn’t really viewed as a blue-chip prospect like a Connor Zilisch or Brent Crews, but he continues to get better every single year,” Rodriguez said. “It’s almost linear, which is almost a little bit of a rare thing to have, because typically you always have some off years where a driver stalls, and that didn’t happen with Corey.” 

Toyota didn’t necessarily know they had something with Heim right away, either. The first time they heard his name was around 2017-2018, when he was running late models against established Toyota drivers, and then he went into the ARCA Menards Series, where he had some success and notable consistency. 

“And we were actually looking for a driver kind of coming out of the Chandler Smith and Christian Eckes era to work with, and for a 16-or 17-year-old, it seemed he had a lot of potential,” said Rodriguez.

Toyota connected Heim with Venturini Motorsports, where he had a seven-race ARCA deal as a trial run. Heim also continued to run short-track races. It all went well enough that by 2021, Heim was under contract with Toyota, and that season ended up going head-to-head with Ty Gibbs. The two combined for 16 race wins, including trading 15 of the first 16 races.

Suddenly, Toyota knew it was time to look for a path forward. 

Heim made the most of his Truck Series opportunity with Toyota in 2021. Chris Graythen/Getty Images

“Most of those contracts are year to year, so we put a lot of pressure on drivers, and I think it’s a good thing,” Rodriguez said. “The drivers have to perform every single year, so it’s a good problem for us to have when we sign them, and if they do well, we have to find a spot for them the following year.”

Heim won twice in his 16 starts in the Truck Series in 2022 before going full-time the following year. He then won 21 races between 2023 and 2025, including the series title. In 2024, he was chosen as the substitute driver for an injured Erik Jones, making his first two Cup Series starts at Dover and Kansas before 23XI Racing entered him in the Kansas race. He made four more starts in 2024, and 23XI Racing signed Heim to a driver development deal at the start of the 2025 season.

Toyota believes that Heim went through the gauntlet of proving himself. Heim had to share a truck with Kyle Busch, the winningest driver in that series. He was compared against his Toyota teammates, such as John Hunter Nemechek and Smith, as well as to others already in the Cup Series, like Busch and Bubba Wallace. Not to mention the Truck Series regulars.

As Heim prepares for the next chapter of his career in the Cup Series, he’s been praised for his patience along the way. It was clear pretty early that he deserved a seat long before he got one, but it came down to space and opportunity. Heim stayed committed to 23XI Racing and their plan, as they were committed to developing him as their future driver.

“I think we sometimes underestimate the importance of maturity and the maturity that he’s shown as a young driver to run partially with Kyle [Busch] and run partially with 23XI Racing,” said TRD president Tyler Gibbs. “When you look at his willingness to put in the time, be a professional, go through the whole routine week in and week out, whether he’s getting in the car or not, the level of preparedness that he has when he gets in the car is very, very different… I think it speaks to him, his character, his desire to succeed. 

“He’ll forgo volume for quality. We’ve seen a lot of drivers take an alternate course, and for some it’s worked out, and for some it certainly has not.” 

Heim could not have painted the picture of his development any better. There were opportunities for him to race in the Cup Series over the last few years with other teams, but he felt 23XI Racing was his home. So Heim committed to the long game and knew that if he did his part behind the wheel, he’d have a shot with them one day.

“I never really doubted that, and I love the fact that I was able to race the truck last year on the Tricon side and have all the success we did and break those records,” Heim said. “I think about it sometimes like, man, if I had taken those deals prior to this one, I never would have had a chance to go out there and win 12 races and a championship. 

“That’s something that I don’t regret at all.”