Practice #1 : Homestead Miami Speedway

• Thursday, March 20th, 2025
• NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain

CRAFTSMAN Truck Series kicks off a tripleheader weekend in Miami

The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series returns to action this week in the Baptist Health 200.

CR7 Racing’s Grant Enfinger is the defending Homestead race winner. Last week’s Las Vegas winner, Corey Heim led a race best 68 of the 134 laps but finished fourth in the October 2024 Homestead visit.

Reigning series champion Ty Majeski won at the track in 2022 and three-time series champ Matt Crafton hoisted the trophy in 2015.

Heim has wasted no time establishing himself as a championship favorite – again. He’s won two of the season’s three races and led a series best 51 laps, however he sits second to Majeski in the standings, five points off the reigning champ’s pace. Enfinger dropped to third in the championship last week, tied with Chandler Smith, eight points back.

As with the other two NASCAR series on the marquee this weekend, the trucks have a long and assorted winner’s list. The last 10 races have all been won by different drivers.

When it comes to consistency, however, the 22-year-old Heim has certainly proven to be a master of the 1.5-milers – like Homestead – winning three of the last five races on that brand of track and his No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota leading 504 laps on 1.5-mile tracks since he started competing fulltime – nearly double that of any other competitor.

Kyle Larson, who will drive the No. 07 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. The last – and only other time he drove that truck he ended up in Victory Lane (at North Wilkesboro, N.C. in May 2023). Fellow NASCAR Cup Series star, the hometown favorite this week, Ross Chastain will drive the No. 44 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet. He has three top-five finishes in three Homestead starts in the series.

• Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Baptist Health 200
• Kennametal Pole Winner: Corey Heim
• Age: 22
• Team : No 11 - Safelite Toyota
• Owner: TRICON Garage
• Crew Chief: Scott Zipadelli
• Corey Heim won the Kennametal Pole Award for the Baptist Health 200 with a lap of 32111 seconds, 168167 mph
• This is his eighth pole in 68 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series races
• This is his first pole and second top-10 start in 2025
• This is his second pole in four races at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Tanner Gray (second) posted his first top-10 start of 2025 and his second in six races at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Kyle Larson (third) posted his fourth top-10 start at Homestead-Miami Speedway It is his first in one race this season
• Giovanni Ruggiero (fifth) was the fastest qualifying rookie

• Friday, March 21st, 2025
• NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain

Kyle Larson starts his bid at a Miami sweep with a thrilling Truck Series victory

Kyle Larson made a dramatic run to the checkered flag, rallying from a late-race spinout to methodically race back through the field and pass the night’s most dominant trucks in the final 10 laps to claim victory in Friday’s Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

It was a fittingly remarkable end to a typically competitive night in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series. Larson spun his No. 07 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet with 45 laps remaining in the 134-lapper and dropped out of the top-20. But the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion drove back through the field and moved forward picking off one frontrunner after another.

Larson, who is entered in all three NASCAR national series races at the 1.5-mile South Florida track this weekend, passed Front Row Motorsports rookie Layne Riggs with two laps to go and never looked back, finishing 1.340-seconds ahead of the field.

The night’s most dominant driver, TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim finished third after leading a race best 78 laps.

“I wasn’t exactly sure if I could get back up there,” said Larson who has four wins in only 16 series starts – two in his last four races. “I didn’t have the restart I wanted, took a little bit too long to start picking them off and then just got ripping the wall and it paid dividends for me in [turns] one and two.”

Larson acknowledged that Heim – who has won two of the season’s opening three races – looked tough all race and was unquestionably the truck to beat. There was a problem with Heim’s motor in the closing laps – his truck suddenly started intermittently shutting off then restoring power in the closing 20 laps.

“Not sure what happened to the 11 [Heim], but that worked out in our favor for sure,” Larson said. “I don’t think I would have gotten to him [otherwise]. Obviously, I would have gotten to second, probably, but that would have been tough to get to him. That last run was a lot of fun.”

Heim was understandably disappointed standing on pit road after the race. His No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota started from pole position, swept both stage wins and led the most laps.

“I feel like we were lights out, the best truck tonight, think we should’ve won the race by six, seven seconds at the end there,” Heim said. “I feel like at the beginning of the runs, I knew what we were capable of and let those guys get away, burn their stuff up and then, fly past them.

“I don’t know exactly what was going on. Never really had an issue like that. I’d be totally fine, and the engine would just hard cut on me. Dash would go black and have no power until I fully cycled it. So, I was coasting for six seconds trying to turn the power switch and turn it back (on). I don’t know.

“Felt I ran a really good race, saving tires and would mow them down on the long runs there. This No. 11 Tundra TRD Pro was really, really good. This just stinks pretty bad.”

McAnally-Hilgemann Racing teammates Tyler Ankrum and Daniel Hemric rounded out the top-five finishers. Floridian Ross Chastain, who competes fulltime in the NASCAR Cup Series, led 33 laps in the No. 44 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet but finished sixth.

ThorSport Racing’s Jake Garcia was seventh, followed by Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith, CR7 Motorsports’ Grant Enfinger and Niece’s Kaden Honeycutt, who rallied to 10th-place showing from a late race penalty that dropped him to 27th in the field.

As for potentially claiming a weekend three-race sweep, Larson said, “I felt like the Truck race was probably going to be the toughest to win, I don’t have much experience in them and the runs are typically shorter. I feel better about Xfinity and Cup but the competition keeps getting tough and tougher as you get on with the weekend, but we’ll see. Off to a good start.”

With his third-place effort, Heim takes over the championship lead and holds eight points over reigning series champ Ty Majeski and 27 points over third place Chandler Smith.

The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series returns to action next Friday night at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway with the Boys and Girls Club of the Blue Ridge 200. Now Xfinity Series rookie Christian Eckes won the race last year.

• Drivers Entered: 34
• Laps Scheduled: 134
• Margin of Victory: 01.340 Seconds
• Time of Race: 1 Hours 43 Minutes 1 Seconds
• Average Speed: 117.068
• Cautions: 4 for 22 laps
• Lead Changes: 13
• Green Flag Passes: 1,168 (10.4 passes per green flag lap)

• Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Baptist Health 200
• Race Winner: Kyle Larson
• Age: 32
• Team : No 07 - HendrickCarscom Chevrolet
• Owner: Jeff Dickerson
• Crew Chief: Allen Hart
• Kyle Larson won the Baptist Health 200, his fourth victory in 16 CRAFTSMAN Truck Series races
• This is his first victory and first top-10 finish in 2025
• This is his first victory and third top-10 finish in four races at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Layne Riggs (second) posted his first top-10 finish in two races at Homestead-Miami Speedway It is his second top-10 finish in 2025
• Corey Heim (third) posted his fourth top-10 finish in four races at Homestead-Miami Speedway
• Connor Mosack (19th) was the highest finishing rookie
• Corey Heim leads the point standings by 8 points over Ty Majeski