One of four drivers to compete in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in a non-chartered (open) car was Corey Heim, the 23XI Racing development driver who piloted the No. 67 Toyota for the 13th time in 2026.

Heim hopes that it’s just the start of a lengthy streak of Cup Series starts, as he’s now set to take over full-time behind the wheel of the chartered No. 35 Toyota (Heim’s official number TBD) that was driven by Riley Herbst in 2025 and 2026, joining a lineup for Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan’s team that already consists of Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick.

Expectations are high for Heim, who accounted for two-thirds of the team’s post-April victories in 2026, despite barely competing in one-third of the schedule.

He earned his first career victory in the inaugural race on Naval Base Coronado in June, and he became the first driver in more than six decades to earn two wins in his first 15 career starts when he won the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in his first attempt.

Would Corey Heim have made the 2026 playoffs?

Heim was ineligible for Cup Series points, since he had declared for Craftsman Truck Series points in his part-time role with Tricon Garage, and even if he had been eligible, he would not have been eligible for the postseason since he was not a full-time driver.

But it’s not hard to do the math to see how many points Heim would have scored. In fact, he did actually score those points for the No. 67 team in the owner standings, and the No. 67 team actually beat one of the 36 full-time teams in the standings.

Heim scored a total of 330 points in his 13 starts, and that included 249 points in nine regular season standings. That’s good for an average of 25.4 points per race, specifically 27.7 during the regular season.

That regular season average would have placed him ninth in the standings, comfortably in the playoff picture even without “win and in”. He would have been in the playoffs by a wide margin of 97 points.

Overall, his points per race average would have placed him 13th, but that included an electrical issue in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway which resulted in a last-place finish. Before then, his average of 27.4 would have placed him inside the top 10.

His two wins were far from the only positives of a breakout season. Another highlight was the Phoenix Raceway playoff race, which saw him do something similar to what he did at Bristol Motor Speedway a year ago. After starting at the back and rallying to sixth at Bristol, he started at the back and rallied to fifth at Phoenix.

He also finished ninth at Chicagoland Speedway, and he led 69 laps at Texas Motor Speedway before a late wreck. Aside from his two DNFs, he finished outside of the top 20 just twice. He finished the season tied for 15th in laps led, and averaged out over 36 races, he would have been comfortably inside the top 10.

After the second half of Reddick’s 2026 season featured somewhat of a regression to the mean, following a historic start to the year, Heim has what it takes to potentially be 23XI Racing’s top driver straight from the get-go.

And while he won’t be eligible to be the Rookie of the Year, due to NASCAR’s ever-changing “requirements”, his first full season in the series could still be one of the be first full seasons the Cup Series has seen in a long time. He proved what he’s capable of in limited time throughout the 2026 season, and now he’s set to have a shot to do it all year long in 2027.

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