NASCAR CUP SERIES: ANDURIL 250

June 21, 2026

Corey Heim

Press Conference

An Interview with:

Q. Corey, you're a NASCAR Cup Series winner. If you could go back and tell your five-year-old self, give him some advice, what would it be?

COREY HEIM: That's a good question. I feel like I've always just needed someone to tell me to kind of keep my head in it. There was times honestly where I was really young where I didn't really know if I wanted to do this the rest of my life. Not that I had my career panned out for me. I didn't know where I was going to be after quarter midget after that age. I don't know if I want to play baseball or football, whatever.

My dad was always the guy that always kept my head in it. Hey, you're doing really good. Just calm down, take a deep breath, let's get them next week. Throughout my life, I feel like I've matured to be very good at that, just not letting things get to my head so much.

But from a young age, I certainly would have told myself now, to a young age version of myself, to just keep the confidence up, keep your head in it, bad days are going to happen. I have feel like I've gotten a lot better about that.

Shout-out to my dad. Happy Father's Day, to any fathers in here as well. Pretty special day for him, I'm sure. First Cup win on Father's Day. He's the only reason I'm here right now. You just can't write this stuff. It's a special thing.

Q. Is he here?

COREY HEIM: Yeah, he was hyped up. He was on the frontstretch with me. His girlfriend right now is from San Diego. They've been out here all week. To be able to race on Father's Day, I'm sure my dad was happy with that in general, just to be at the racetrack. But to win on Father's Day, get my first Cup win, that is just an incredible story and something we'll definitely never forget.

It's funny, in Victory Lane with him, then I go all the way to that naval ship, probably took an hour. Come back, he's still in Victory Lane. He's soaking it in. But he deserves it. He's the only reason why I'm here today. Big props to my dad.

Q. What happened with the Hocevar thing going into the chicane?

COREY HEIM: I really don't know. I feel like I was rolling more speed through him all day of. When I caught him, I felt like he was going to have better pace. I don't know if he was really, really saving tire. We are all kind of head on a swivel through there. There's a lot of walls, barriers we're trying to slide through.

Next thing I know I go from five back to on his bumper, then he's turned around. It all happened so fast, I really don't know what happened to be honest with you.

Sorry to those guys for ruining their day. Obviously they were pretty fast.

Q. It sounded like in Tyler's post-race interview he slammed on the brakes to give you the lead back. What is your reaction to that? Would you have done that?

COREY HEIM: Yeah, that was kind of my feeling. I would have done it as long as it's a teammate, first of all. I would have done it for anybody I guess if we had that big of a gap. I wasn't really familiar with how big the gap was at that point.

It's just the respectful thing to do. I've done it a lot on sim racing. Of course, that's not high stakes by any means. Anytime you run into a guy, you feel bad, it's take it back, that's my bad.

But props to him. I feel like that was the right thing to do. I am glad he did it. At the same time he's still got to do it. So props to him for doing that for me.

THE MODERATOR: Corey, congratulations. Thanks for your time.

COREY HEIM: Thank you.