Corey Heim’s first NASCAR Cup Series win will have to breathe for at least another week before it gets an on-track follow-up.
NASCAR’s official Sonoma Raceway entry list has confirmed 36 cars for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350, but the No. 67 23XI Racing Toyota that Heim drove to victory at Naval Base Coronado is not among them. That gives one of the season’s best stories a strangely abrupt pause: Heim stunned San Diego with his first Cup win, then immediately disappeared from the next Cup grid.
The omission is not a shock in scheduling terms. Heim is still a limited-schedule Cup driver this season before his expected full-time move with 23XI Racing next year. But the timing makes it feel sharper, because Sonoma is another road course, another California stop, and the first leg of NASCAR’s In-Season Challenge.
23XI moves on without its newest winner
For 23XI, the Sonoma entry is back to its three chartered cars: Bubba Wallace in the No. 23, Riley Herbst in the No. 35 and Tyler Reddick in the No. 45. That means Heim’s San Diego breakthrough stays boxed as a one-off Cup moment for now, rather than becoming the start of an immediate road-course run.
It also leaves the team with a different kind of pressure. Reddick arrives after losing a likely San Diego victory and seeing his regular-season points lead shrink, while Wallace’s San Diego recovery gave 23XI a Sonoma warning of its own. Herbst, meanwhile, continues to carry the third chartered entry through a weekend where the organisation’s part-time winner is watching from outside the Cup list.
That is the oddity NASCAR has created with Heim’s rise. His San Diego performance did not look like a cameo. He beat Reddick straight up in the closing phase, absorbed contact from the points leader, then finished the job once Reddick’s tyre trouble settled the argument. NASCAR’s race report also confirmed post-race inspection was completed without issue, making the win official before the series turned north to Sonoma.
Sonoma still carries a Heim shadow
The official Sonoma list has plenty of road-course intrigue without him. Shane van Gisbergen is back as the defending winner after finishing 38th in San Diego, AJ Allmendinger reaches his 500th Cup start, and Reddick’s Sonoma bracket start now carries San Diego weight after a costly Sunday for the points leader.
But Heim’s absence gives the weekend a clean subplot before a wheel has turned. NASCAR has a new Cup winner, 23XI has a clearer view of its future, and Sonoma has been denied the immediate rematch that San Diego’s finish deserved.
The next time Heim appears in Cup machinery, the expectations around the No. 67 will feel different. San Diego made sure of that.
External sources: NASCAR Sonoma entry list; Jayski Sonoma race page; NASCAR San Diego race report.
