Parker Kligerman disqualification means Corey Heim wins first NASCAR Truck race of year
Corey Heim celebrated his season-opening NASCAR Truck Series win at Daytona International Speedway — even if the win came a bit later than expected.
Heim originally finished Friday night’s race in second, behind checkered-flag-planting, part-time racer Parker Kligerman. But a half-hour after the race’s conclusion, Kligerman’s car was disqualified after it failed to clear post-race inspection, and Heim was the one with the win.
NASCAR announced that the Henderson Motorsports No. 75 was too low on both sides of the rear of the truck.
Heim was part stunned, part satisfied, part still feeling the effects of a P2 finish in the media center.
“It’s my first time having this kind of scenario happen either way,” Heim said. “Certainly glad to be on the right side of it. Sucks for Parker and those guys. They seemed like they obviously put themselves in position at the right time to win the race, but obviously there’s another level to it after the race.
“So, yeah, just grateful to be in the spot, I guess, to take advantage of that, and huge props to everyone at TRICON Garage, Toyota, and Safelite. First win under the Toyota Gazoo Racing banner, which is cool. Move on to Atlanta and try to get another one.”
The win-then-disqualification made for a strange post-race set of circumstances. In the media center, for 20 minutes, Kligerman and his crew chief, Chris Carrier, were grateful and excited for a momentous win — one that could only be made possible at a place like Daytona, where the small, part-time race team can compete with the more established ones.
Kligerman even joked that he didn’t realize the race was over. He thought that when the final caution on the final lap came through it was actually the penultimate lap, and thus overtime was incoming. He thought the winner, in essence, hadn’t yet been established — that another race win might’ve been snatched from him as several were in a caution-turned-overtime-cluttered Charlotte Roval in 2024.
He was right about the fact that the winner hadn’t been established.
The problem?
He, again, somehow, found himself on the short end of the stick.
With Kligerman’s disqualification, Heim finished P1, Giovanni Ruggiero finished P3, Ty Majeski finished P4 and Grant Enfinger finished P5.
How the racing went down
For as much as the postrace disqualification will be what is remembered from Friday night, don’t let it distract you: There was a good race — and a good finish — beforehand.
Let’s start from the race’s relatively clean beginning.
Ben Rhodes, the race’s polesitter, won Stage 1 without much fuss. Matt Crafton took Stage 2. Toni Breidinger spun off Turn 4, prompting the only caution-for-cause in the first two stages — but besides that, all the action was reserved for Stage 3.
It was refreshing, drivers said postrace. Among those delighted drivers was Heim: “Compared to last year, it was such a big upgrade as far as the quality of racing,” the original second-place finisher said.
Stage 3 heated up, however, as it tends to do. The first caution of the final stage came on Lap 49 of 100, when Tyler Ankrum blew an engine on Turn 1. The next came in Lap 69 when Clay Greenfield spun off Turn 4 and hit the inside wall. The Big One — the pile-up that will be remembered from this race — came with 17 laps to go, when Jack Wood was turned into the outside wall and thereafter collected so many contenders in his wake, including Rajah Caruth and Matt Crafton and Michael McDowell.
The rest of the race essentially stayed green thereafter. And for the longest time it looked like Rhodes’ show.
With three laps to go, Rhodes overtook Bayley Currey, commanding a lead while the rest of the field jumbled up three-wide behind him. Rhodes toggled back and forth between the inside and outside lines, trying to do what he could to block Kligerman.
But all of a sudden, on Lap 99, Kligerman used the momentum of the outside line to drag past Rhodes, and the bottom lane headed by Rhodes fell off as cars filled a third lane in the middle. In a final attempt, Layne Riggs tried to shove Rhodes back into contention on the inside, but Rhodes appeared to get turned slightly in to the rest of the field, and that was it.
Rhodes’ swerve took out another car, and then the bottom lane scrubbed up against the apron and fell apart from there.
To be clear: At this point, Kligerman didn’t care. The white flag had flown. He was ahead. And thus he was able to float away from the carnage.
He wasn’t able to secure a win, though. That honor belonged to a muted Heim postrace.
““It’s cool, especially at Daytona,” Heim said. “Once again, just would have been cooler if I crossed the line first and whatnot, but we’ll take them any way we can get them.”
Note: In a previous version of this story, Parker Kligerman was identified as the race winner. After publication, NASCAR disqualified Kligerman and declared Heim the winner.
This story was originally published February 14, 2025 at 10:20 PM.
