Corey Heim bemoans 'new way' to lose at Pocono after flat tire under caution

For how great Corey Heim has been this season, his luck has been just as bad. This 11 team has had a few wins slip away. Today at Pocono Raceway, Heim led 48 of 80 laps before a flat right rear tire took him out of contention. The NASCAR Truck Series driver has four wins this season, but he could easily have four more.

Five times this season, Corey Heim has led the most laps and not won a race. In three of his four races, he has also led the most laps on his way to frankly dominant victories. But whether its wrecks or flat tires or a pit road issue or his truck losing power, something happens. Something almost always seems to happen.

Understandably, Heim is frustrated. As he told Dustin Albino of Jayski and NASCAR.com.

“It’s really frustrating, you know, have a chance to do something pretty special, you know, with this 11 team, and I feel like we just obviously haven’t gotten it done one way or another,” Heim said after the race. “I feel like we kinda write a new way to have it go away on us every week. So, I don’t know, just really can’t put words to it. Just unfortunate. I ran something over and somehow, coming to the green flag on the last stint there, never got another caution. Just kind of worst kind of situation you can have there.”

Corey Heim explained that he wasn’t scrubbing his tires a lot. However, he gave them a few back-and-forths on the track to clean them. That’s when he noticed the issue. His team told him the right rear was flat, he had likely run over something to cause it. He goes to pit road, and without a late caution, he was nowhere close to being in contention after that.

With Heim’s late race fiasco, Layne Riggs took over. Confusion among Riggs and Carson Hocevar on the restart after Heim dropped to pit road led to a black flag for the Cup Series regular. Hocevar pleaded his case, but had to serve his penalty.

In the blink of an eye, it was Riggs in control of the race, not Corey Heim. A tough way to have another dominant performance go to the wayside. But there is no doubt Heim has more race wins coming this season, and they will likely be very dominant victories.

As long as Heim stays mistake-free, he is the best driver in the series. But even the best drivers can’t avoid everything that comes their way on the track.