Corey Heim and Carson Hocevar are on a collision course—figuratively speaking, that is.
Both drivers made impressive statements this past weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Hocevar, 23, won the pole for the Brickyard 400 and held the lead in the race until the first round of green-flag pit stops.
Heim, who turned 24 on July 5, grabbed the top spot after a restart on Lap 27 and kept veterans Christopher Bell and Joey Logano at bay for the final 34 laps.
Heim is the youngest winner of the Crown Jewel race since Jeff Gordon took the checkered flag in the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway two days after turning 23 in 1994.
Indeed, Heim and Hocevar are emblematic of a younger generation in NASCAR racing, a group of 20-something drivers already making a mark in the sport and ready to do battle against each other.
All three first-time winners this season—Heim, Hocevar and Ty Gibbs—got their maiden victories when they were 23 years old, the first time in Cup history that three or more drivers that young accomplished the feat.
Gibbs, too, was a presence at Indianapolis, leading 46 laps and winning the first stage before finishing 12th.
But the focus was on Heim and Hocevar, who have a history dating to the Championship 4 Race in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series in 2023, when both drivers were fighting for the title and wrecked each other in the process.
Nor could the drivers avoid a certain degree of controversy in the Brickyard 400. In the second stage, Hocevar steered his car to pit road on Lap 82. He returned to the track right behind the Toyota of Heim, who was leading at the time and running long.
For 10 frustrating laps, Heim kept Hocevar in his wake. When Heim finally ducked onto pit road on Lap 92, Hocevar steered toward him and expressed his displeasure with a one-finger salute.
“I’m just a fan—I wanted to wave at him,” Hocevar quipped after the race. “He’s number one. He won. It’s fun… if we don’t like each other, but we race really hard. His stuff’s super-fast, obviously, with the car he’s in. He does a really, really good job with it.
“I’m looking forward to, when we get our stuff a little better, being in front of him and maybe holding him up.”
Hocevar is an imposing 6-foot-4, and he possesses a megawatt smile that can light up a room. He revels in the unusual and outlandish—witness his outside-the-car victory celebration at Talladega—and has developed a huge social media following eager to jump to his defense during online spats with other drivers.
Hocevar is undeniably aggressive on the race track. His 27 incidents involving 30 different Cup drivers this season are tops in the series.
Heim, on the other hand, is more laid back, but at every level of motorsports he is used to winning. His single-season series-record 12 victories propelled him to the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series title last year as he waited for a full-time Cup ride with 23XI Racing—a career goal that won’t be met until next season.
Nevertheless, Heim wasn’t about to let the byplay with Hocevar on Sunday go unaddressed.
“I was blocking him, not really too bad I thought,” Heim said. “I was trying to just hold my position. I never threw like a bad block. I was just trying to protect my entry. He didn’t like it. He lost and I won, so I don’t really care.”
Indeed. Heim defied the odds in winning for a second time in a part-time role with 23XI. He also seems to have a penchant for major events, with his first victory coming in the inaugural street course race at Naval Base Coronado, where Hocevar also qualified on the front row before finishing 19th.
In a sport that craves rivalries, Heim and Hocevar were front and center on Sunday, and you don’t need a crystal ball to see the future of NASCAR racing.
It was right before your eyes at the Brickyard.
— NASCAR Wire Service —