TRUCKS: Majeski Suffers Late-Race Adversity, Heim Capitalizes for Win

Ty Majeski utterly dominated Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series eero 250 at Richmond Raceway, but as we saw in the closing laps of the race, there's a reason we always run a race to its conclusion before handing out the trophy.

Race Results: eero 250 at Richmond

After leading 143 laps on his path to sweeping the Stage Wins in Stages 1 and 2 in the 250-lap contest, Majeski was knocked out of the lead when his ThorSport Racing teammate Matt Crafton slipped in an oil patch on the track, and collided with the side of Majeski's No. 98 Ford.

Both drivers spun, which paved the way for Corey Heim to be in a position to capture his seventh win of the 2025 NASCAR Truck Series season. Heim would work his way around Sammy Smith, who was driving the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado in this race, for the race lead on Lap 231.

Heim wouldn't look back as he collected his seventh win of the year, and 18th victory of his 82-race NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career. Heim admitted he didn't have the best truck on Friday night, but was happy to pull off the win in a similar fashion that he's lost races earlier this season.

“Yeah, I really didn’t feel like we were — I mean, me personally, I wasn’t very good. I was very inconsistent,” Heim said after collecting his latest win. “Obviously, [Ty Majeski] was the best truck. I’m sure he got damaged there, and it slowed him down. But you know, we’ve had some get away on us like that this year, this is one that kind of redeems that a little bit.”

As Heim was working on the lead, Majeski was gaining more damage, this time to the rear of his No. 98 truck. Majeski would suffer a big hit from behind from rookie contender Gio Ruggiero, and then another shot from Corey LaJoie. The damage sustained would flare the right rear quarterpanel out, which drastically impacted the speed of Majeski's truck.

Still, Majeski was able to claw his way back to a runner-up finish.

Layne Riggs would follow Majeski's path to the front in the closing laps to secure a third-place finish in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford F-150, and he would be followed by Spire Motorsports teammates Sammy Smith and Corey LaJoie inside the top-five.

Gio Ruggiero, Jake Garcia, Ben Rhodes, Chandler Smith, and Kaden Honeycutt would round out the top-10 finishers in the race.

With his seventh-place result, Garcia was able to secure the final berth in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoff field by 19 points over Ben Rhodes, his ThorSport Racing teammate. Garcia, who came into the night 11 points to the good, had a fast truck, but remained cautious throughout the race as he didn't want an on-track incident to come between him and a Playoff appearance.

“I just did my best to run a smart race in the second half. Even in the first half, there were some moments where we were four-wide, and that’s not going to work out at Richmond,” Garcia said after collecting his eighth top-10 finish of the season. “So, there were some points where I had to bail out and lost a bunch of spots on some of those restarts just being conservative. But our truck was really fast, and I think we could have finished top-five certainly.”

Here is the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoff Grid heading into the opening race of the Playoffs, which will take place at Darlington Raceway:

Next up for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is the Playoff-opening race, the Sober or Slammer 200 at Darlington Raceway on Saturday, August 30. That race will be televised by FS1 with coverage set to kick off at 12:00 PM ET.