Anduril 250: Heim earns first career Cup win at Naval Base Coronado

CORONADO, Calif. — 23XI Racing driver Corey Heim is now a winner in the NASCAR Cup Series after taking the victory in the inaugural San Diego Street Race at Qualcomm Circuit on Naval Base Coronado.

In just his 13th career Cup Series start, the 2025 Craftsman Truck Series champion and current part-time 23XI Cup driver made the most of his opportunities up front in the Anduril 250. After capitalizing on his teammate Tyler Reddick’s mistake and a tire issue, Heim cruised to a 10.365-second victory, the largest margin of victory for a first-time winner since Alan Kulwicki in 1988, according to NASCAR Insights.

“I’m speechless,” Heim said. “I mean, we started the race, I mean, I think we started 13th. We fell straight back to 20th. Then put on our scuffs from qualifying, struggled just as bad. I don’t know if we made any adjustments. Bootie (Barker, crew chief) kept telling me these were our worst two sets of tire, we were going to be fine. He was right. I couldn’t believe it. We strapped another set of tires on, and we were just fine. Hit the wall a couple of times and maybe knocked some good into the car. I have no idea. After Stage 2, I just took a deep breath. I had high expectations coming into this race. Even playing field for me. You don’t see that every day for a young driver like myself. Just kind of took a deep breath, reset and went after it. Caught a couple breaks with some of the good guys out.

“I feel like for a while I thought he was kind of playing with me, but he was able to set the pace being the lead car,” Heim said about his battle with Reddick. “I was able to stick with him. I’m not really burning my stuff up. Five to go came. Time to put some pressure on him, see if I could get him to make a mistake. Sure enough he did. I think he ended up braking or something. I don’t know what happened to me. He doored me down there in five and gave me back to me. That’s something you don’t see every day. That’s a great teammate. I don’t know. Just crazy. It feels like a dream. I hope I don’t wake up from this dream. This is insane. So thankful for 23XI, Mobil 1, Toyota for this journey. I didn’t expect to come into my part-time season and win. Here we are. It’s crazy. Hasn’t even sunk in yet. I’m sure it will.”

Heim is also the first driver ever to win a Cup Series race in the No. 67 car.

Another one of Heim’s 23XI teammates, Bubba Wallace, had his best road-course finish in the Cup Series after an eventful day for the No. 23 team. Wallace started 12th, made his way to the lead, pitted, then lost a right-front tire. Wallace ended Stage 1 in 39th and got trapped two laps down, but made his way back to the lead lap and ultimately finished second.

“We are all busting our ass to perform and to have a little thing not go our way,” Wallace said. “I got to focus on what we can control, but all in all a good day for Toyota and a good day for Xfinity and a good day for our team. I believe that’s the first 1-2 finish for our team, but I could be wrong. Good to come out of here in San Diego and have a bit of fun, appreciate NASCAR and appreciate the Navy for everything they did here this weekend.”

Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson was one of the best drivers all race weekend, as the driver of the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet was fastest in practice and spent the majority of the race up front, leading 11 laps en route to a third-place finish, which was his third straight top-five finish of the year.

“I’m surprised how scuffed up it is because we had a super-clean day, as clean of a race you can have on a street course,” Larson said about his car and the San Diego Street Race. “All-in-all, it was a great day for this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team. We had a shot at the win there, if the strategy would have played out. I think it was between us and the No. 67 (Corey Heim). You never know how it might go on that run there, but the caution kind of broke it up. They were just super-strong. We were surrounded by 23XI cars. They had a great package for the street course here.

“Overall, it was just a lot of fun this weekend. It was an unreal atmosphere, probably one of the coolest atmospheres I’ve been a part of in a long time. Kudos to NASCAR, the Naval Base Coronado and all the men and women who serve. I was hoping we could get this Chevy to Victory Lane, but we’ll take a third-place finish.”

Results from the 2026 Anduril 250 at Naval Base Coronado are listed below:

Other Race Facts

A “Big One” happened early that took out many of the heavy favorites, including Connor Zilisch, Shane van Gisbergen and Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race winner Austin Hill.

The Trackhouse Racing teammates Zilisch and van Gisbergen finished 37th and 38th, respectively. In addition, Zilisch led his first career laps in the Cup Series (eight), which also made him the youngest driver in Cup Series history to lead laps on a road course (19 years, 10 months, 30 days old).

Brent Crews got his first taste of Cup Series action, as the 18-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing prodigy took over for an injured Christopher Bell late in Stage 1. Unfortunately for the No. 20 Craftsman Racing For A Miracle Toyota, Crews had a major gearbox issue that caused him to finish last in Bell’s car.

Tyler Reddick was one of the best cars at the end of the race before finishing 25th after getting a flat tire during an intense battle with teammate Corey Heim. Reddick is now just eight points ahead of Denny Hamlin, after being over 130 points ahead after Watkins Glen.

Kevin Magnussen made his Cup Series debut with Trackhouse’s Project 91 program, but it did not go as planned. Despite setting the Xfinity Fastest Lap, Magnussen finished 27th, but got some attention after he spun Noah Gragson during the race, and it followed by a post-race confrontation.

Both Zane Smith and AJ Allmendinger had impressive days, as Smith started and finished fourth, while Allmendinger started 15th and finished fifth.

Allmendinger and Ryan Preece scored the most points among all drivers (45).

Heim joins Jimmie Johnson as the only two drivers in the Cup Series since at least 1982 to win their first race in their 13th career start. Johnson was also in this race, finishing 28th after multiple issues.

Heim is also the fourth open car to win in the Next Gen era, joining van Gisbergen (Chicago, 2023), Allmendinger (Charlotte Roval, 2023), and Bubba Wallace (Indianapolis, 2025).

GRID RANKING

The 2026 GRID Ranking is the 10th year of the world’s premier motorsports ranking system, which was initially released on Sunday, April 5.

The official ranking includes drivers participating in seven racing series (NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, Formula E, WRC, Supercars, MotoGP). Each driver earns GRID Ratings, which help determine their seeding in the GRID Ranking.

DRIVER	OLD RATING	PREVIOUS RANKING	MOST RECENT FINISH	NEW RATING	NEW RANKING
Tyler Reddick	18.59	2nd	25th	17.50	2nd
Denny Hamlin	16.28	4th	14th	15.32	4th
Kyle Larson	8.88	27th	3rd	9.66	23rd
Chase Elliott	9.99	19th	12th	9.40	25th
Ty Gibbs	9.81	21st	15th	9.23	27th

Week 12 of the GRID Ranking:

Week 12 of the GRID Ranking saw Tyler Reddick maintain a healthy gap to Denny Hamlin, even after a late-race issue. Kyle Larson, who was not in the GRID Ranking two weeks ago, has jumped into third in the NASCAR Rating.

The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, June 28. Coverage will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET on TNT Sports.

 

GRID Network