There simply could also be one other road-course challenger for Shane van Gisbergen to cope with.
And he isn’t on the horizon. He is right here — besides he isn’t.
With the NASCAR Cup Sequence closing out the street course schedule for 2026 Sunday in Northern California, all eyes have turned to final week’s spectacular first-time winner Corey Heim.
Heim positive appeared the hotshoe half in dominating the sector because it fought to discover a grip on the Naval base in San Diego then handed 23XI Racing Toyota teammate Tyler Reddick with three laps left.
So it will likely be attention-grabbing to see how Heim fares this weekend in his effort for a road-course repeat within the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.
Nicely, it will have been attention-grabbing.
In a real quirk, Heim is a part-time driver and won’t be within the No. 67 Camry, an enormous letdown and one thing not witnessed in different skilled sports activities.
It is like a quarterback throwing for 400 yards and 5 touchdowns in a midseason rivalry contest and never suiting up the following recreation.
That sort of absence simply would not occur in different professional leagues, however Heim is dedicated to solely working a dozen races at NASCAR’s high degree.
The 23-year-old Heim, who will probably be a full-time driver for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s group subsequent season, blew the doorways off the extra skilled competitors, together with “King of the Street” van Gisbergen, at Naval Base Coronado.
The part-time Cup driver blazed across the 3.4-mile street course in a downright dazzling, 10-second-plus victory over teammate Bubba Wallace, who rallied from a misplaced wheel underneath inexperienced to put up a season-best runner-up exhibiting.
In NASCAR’s broadcast historical past, possibly somebody has been known as a “generational expertise” extra typically than the Marietta, Ga., native was glowingly late Sunday afternoon and into early night on the East Coast, however that is probably not the case. The sales space and postgame wrap-up present gushed over the defending Craftsman Truck Sequence champ’s first Cup win in simply his thirteenth begin.
Heim’s subsequent Cup begin, his seventh of 2026, will happen on July 4 weekend in NASCAR’s return to Chicagoland Speedway for the primary time since 2019, when Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman received his first Cup race.
Heim owes a part of his checkered flag, possibly one little black-and-white nook of it, to Reddick.
The factors chief within the No. 45, Reddick used a crossover transfer and pushed Heim up the observe in Flip 5. Then, in a present of teammate favoritism, the five-time winner let Heim again in — like letting a foe up in a combat.
Talking of fights, one almost developed between Noah Gragson and former System One driver Kevin Magnussen, who dumped Gragson’s Entrance Row Motorsports Ford.
What ensued was face-to-face language as salty as an episode of The Sopranos.
“(He is) coming into our ballpark and working into us,” Gragson mentioned on Sirius/XM NASCAR Radio. “I used to be about to throw a punch, and I acquired instructed proper earlier than I acquired over there that there is going to be long-term penalties with my job if that was the case.”
Defending Sonoma race winner van Gisbergen and rookie Connor Zilisch probably are testy from wrecking out whereas combating for the lead at San Diego. Plus, Reddick fell from a potential sixth win to twenty fifth on the finish and noticed his season factors lead slim to only eight over Hamlin.
Drivers may not be so rosy with one another within the Napa Valley winemaking nation this Sunday.
