There just may be another road-course challenger for Shane van Gisbergen to contend with.
And he’s not on the horizon. He’s here — except he’s not.
With the NASCAR Cup Series closing out the road course schedule for 2026 Sunday in Northern California, all eyes have turned to last week’s spectacular first-time winner Corey Heim.
Heim sure looked the hotshoe part in dominating the field as it fought to find a grip on the Naval base in San Diego then passed 23XI Racing Toyota teammate Tyler Reddick with three laps left.
So it will be interesting to see how Heim fares this weekend in his effort for a road-course repeat in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.
Well, it would have been interesting.
In a true quirk, Heim is a part-time driver and will not be in the No. 67 Camry, a massive letdown and something not witnessed in other professional sports.
It’s like a quarterback throwing for 400 yards and five touchdowns in a midseason rivalry contest and not suiting up the next game.
That kind of absence just doesn’t happen in other pro leagues, but Heim is committed to only running a dozen races at NASCAR’s top level.
The 23-year-old Heim, who will be a full-time driver for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s organization next season, blew the doors off the more experienced competition, including “King of the Road” van Gisbergen, at Naval Base Coronado.
The part-time Cup driver blazed around the 3.4-mile road course in a downright dazzling, 10-second-plus victory over teammate Bubba Wallace, who rallied from a lost wheel under green to post a season-best runner-up showing.
In NASCAR’s broadcast history, maybe someone has been referred to as a “generational talent” more often than the Marietta, Ga., native was glowingly late Sunday afternoon and into early evening on the East Coast, but that’s likely not the case. The booth and postgame wrap-up show gushed over the defending Craftsman Truck Series champ’s first Cup win in just his 13th start.
Heim’s next Cup start, his seventh of 2026, will take place on July 4 weekend in NASCAR’s return to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019, when Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman won his first Cup race.
Heim owes part of his checkered flag, maybe one little black-and-white corner of it, to Reddick.
The points leader in the No. 45, Reddick used a crossover move and pushed Heim up the track in Turn 5. Then, in a show of teammate favoritism, the five-time winner let Heim back in — like letting a foe up in a fight.
Speaking of fights, one nearly developed between Noah Gragson and former Formula One driver Kevin Magnussen, who dumped Gragson’s Front Row Motorsports Ford.
What ensued was face-to-face language as salty as an episode of The Sopranos.
“(He’s) coming into our ballpark and running into us,” Gragson said on Sirius/XM NASCAR Radio. “I was about to throw a punch, and I got told right before I got over there that there’s going to be long-term consequences with my job if that was the case.”
Defending Sonoma race winner van Gisbergen and rookie Connor Zilisch likely are testy from wrecking out while fighting for the lead at San Diego. Plus, Reddick fell from a possible sixth win to 25th at the end and saw his season points lead narrow to just eight over Hamlin.
Drivers might not be so rosy with each other in the Napa Valley winemaking country this Sunday.
