NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES: CHAMPIONSHIP

November 8, 2024

Christian Eckes

Grant Enfinger

Corey Heim

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by a member of our Championship 4, Corey Heim. Outstanding run out there. Very hard-fought. I'll open it up straight to questions.

Q. Do you feel even without the penalty, would you have had anything for Ty if you were able to kind of race him neck-and-neck the entire way?

COREY HEIM: Probably not. They were unbelievably lights-out the whole race. From the get-go I felt like we fired off pretty free in stage one, and we were able to reel him back in. He seemed to struggle in traffic a little bit.

Once they adjusted on it and once the caution started cycling to the point where we never really hit a lot of lap traffic, it was about over for me. I was able to take the lead from him at one point and race him super hard to try to get him to slip a tire, and he did a little bit with me on his door just racing really hard.

But, yeah, I mean, they were lights-out. They were probably two-tenths better than me a lap me pushing 100%. Then the unfortunate part is I feel like our Tundra TRD Pro is really good. We were probably two-tenths better than the guys behind us.

I feel like if you take him out of the equation, we were far and beyond the best truck. We were able to hold off the 19 on ten lap fresher tires, and he was still driving away from both of us. It's hard to even be frustrated. It's like what could I have even done at that point?

But super proud of everyone at Tricon Garage, Toyota Racing and Safelite. They've put together a phenomenal 2024 campaign. Nothing to hang our heads about. It's definitely easy to be bummed out sitting here finishing one spot short, but it's part of it I guess at the end of the day.

Q. Were you frustrated by the call and kind of surprised that that call was made on you?

COREY HEIM: Yeah, I was surprised I guess would be the best way to put it. I was really frustrated at first because I didn't really understand. I haven't really seen a replay of it yet, so I guess I would have to go look at it. It's hard for me to sit here and criticize without ever seeing it.

It was just an instinctual reaction for me to just go for it, and I thought I saw the 38 kind of pulling down towards the apron, and then he sort of cut back is what I saw and I just kept tracking that initial line that he had down to the apron.

I'm sure it looked bad on TV, but it's a really big gray area rule with everyone how we dip down to the apron because if the leader stays up onto the actual racetrack and doesn't cut to the apron and someone cuts down to the apron, that's also getting out of line too soon.

Like I said, it's hard for me to sit here and criticize anybody without seeing it, but I was surprised at first because I no idea I did anything wrong to begin with, but I certainly could have.

Q. I don't know that it's going to happen right now, but at some point are you able to look at the season that you had and feel this great sense of pride or achievement from that?

COREY HEIM: I can sit here right now and think that. It's a six-win season for us, and we've put together some really incredible races this year.

Like I said, there's really nothing to hang our heads about. It's really unfortunate that we came up short, but yeah, looking back at the season, we've had our highs and had our lows.

I feel like 2023 we were always kind of in context, but didn't maybe get the wins that we deserved at points, but you know, here we've listed off some really good runs and had a shot. To be a race car driver and have a shot at the championship is all you can really ask for at the end of the day, and we were just one spot short.

THE MODERATOR: Now joined by Christian Eckes as well.

Q. Corey, coming back to the field, making big moves on the restarts, how much did you feel like you just abused your tires coming back through?

COREY HEIM: It's tough to tell. When I was racing the 98 straight up in the beginning of the first two stages, he would just kick my butt in the first 20 laps and then sort of fade.

And then we never really got a long run from there. We got a somewhat long run to end the race. I want to say it was 30 laps or something like that. But that wasn't enough for him to fade. Once he hit traffic, that's when he started to fade.

I don't feel like I beat him up too bad. We had one lap at a time before we got another caution, but it certainly is a possibility. There was no tires that were going to allow me to compete with him tonight. He was lights-out.

THE MODERATOR: Corey, congratulations on a great season and enjoy your offseason. Thank you for you your time. Now joined by Grant Enfinger.

Q. This is a question for both of you guys. You guys made up so much ground on that final restart, but did it just kind of wear your tires out to where you just couldn't have the strength to hang in with the 98 at the end?

CHRISTIAN ECKES: Yeah, it initially had more grip, but I feel like I had to abuse the tires to make the moves that I was doing. Eventually just ran out, but I felt like the tires kind of equalized there to a certain degree because of the vehicle that we had versus the 11 and 98.

GRANT ENFINGER: Yeah, I mean, pretty much I was in the same boat there. We could go for a little bit, but at the end of the day the trucks that were better than us finished in front of us.

The new tires were good for the restart and kind of made you be able to easily pass the trucks that you were better than anyway. But it was only like five laps' difference on tires. If there had been more than that, maybe they showed up more in the long run.

Q. I don't know if you could tell, but having the number one pit stall and moving the line, could you notice whether -- did you have any advantage at all in that pit stall?

GRANT ENFINGER: Maybe a small advantage, but obviously not as much as it was in years past. I heard a few people were, but I was having difficulty getting in and leaving our box, just slicker than normal, slicker than I remember here.

Yeah, I still think pit stall 1 was an advantage, but we were twisting on jack bolts the whole time and really couldn't utilize our really, really good pit crew.

Appreciate them all year long. Wish we could have taken more advantage of them tonight.

Q. Just walked in late, so I don't know if this was addressed at all. For Christian, is there any trepidation or regret in the way that the race last week played out given that you could have knocked out Ty?

CHRISTIAN ECKES: I mean, I really -- we still lost the championship no matter what. The 11 beat us. Yeah, no regrets.

Q. This one is for Grant. Obviously not the result you wanted today, but showing up strong, winning two of the last four races in the season, what does that say about this team and the confidence going into next season?

GRANT ENFINGER: Yeah, I think for sure we have confidence, and I feel like we've proven to not only maybe y'all and our competitors, but to ourselves that we can do this, we can contend for wins and contend for championships.

I'm really proud of kind of the growth we've had all year, the buying in from everybody we've had all year. We still have a long ways to go from an organization to get it to kind of what me and Jeff and Shelton all envision and Cody.

Yeah, proud of how far we have come. I feel like we earned our spot here. But at the end of the day, we just flat out didn't have the speed as especially the 11 and 98. I think Christian could fire off better than us, and he would kind of fade a little bit. I couldn't go at all on a short run I feel like.

At the end of the day, proud of the effort, but disappointed with today and just our performance.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time. Congratulations on a great season.