Heim, who has filled in for the injured Erik Jones in Legacy Motor Club’s No. 43 Toyota in the NASCAR Cup Series the past two weeks, returned to his regular job on Saturday night and earned a dominating win in the Truck Series race.
Heim led 79 of 134 laps and after taking the lead for the final time from Nick Sanchez with 32 laps remaining quickly built a sizeable advantage over Zane Smith.
In the final 10 laps, Smith closed the lead to just over a second, but Heim held to take the victory by 1.088 seconds at the checkered flag.
The win is the second this season and seventh of Heim’s career. The 21-year-old native of Marietta, Ga., has not finished outside the top 10 all season.
Making his second Cup start of the year, Heim will line up 20th in Sunday’s Cup race. He finished 25th in his series debut last week at Dover.
“I can’t say enough about these guys at Tricon Garage – what a truck,” Heim said. “I can’t say it was easy but with the balance I had, there was so much potential for the truck to be better. It was a handful those last 10 laps.
“I really, really wanted this one today.”
Christian Eckes finished third, Kaden Honeycutt ended up with a career-best fourth and Brett Moffitt rounded out the top five.
Completing the top 10 were Sanchez, Tanner Gray, Dean Thompson, Daniel Dye and Matt Crafton.
Supercars star Cam Waters, making his second series start, finished 19th and on the lead lap. He got into a brief confrontation with rookie Layne Riggs on pit road after the race before walking away.
Stage 1
Heim passed Smith with 16 of 30 laps remaining and held on to take the Stage 1 win by 1.232 seconds. Eckes was third, Chase Purdy fourth and Honeycutt rounded out the top five.
Ty Majeski hit the Turn 1 wall on lap 2 and eventually was forced to retire from the race.
Stage 2
Smith got around Eckes on the restart and held off Heim by 1.552 seconds to take the Stage 2 win. Eckes ended up third, Honeycutt fourth and Purdy rounded out the top five.
Stage 3
During the break between Stages 2 and 3, the lead lap trucks all pit with Eckes first off pit road. Tyler Ankrum had a safety violation on his pit stop and had to restart from the rear of the field.
Eckes led Smith and Sanchez when the race returned to green with 67 laps remaining in the race.
With 45 laps to go, Heim had moved into the lead with Honeycutt close behind in second as Smith ran third.
On lap 93, Rajah Caruth was the first of the lead lap trucks to hit pit road for a final green flag pit stop to take on new tires and fuel to make it to the end of the race. Heim followed on the following lap.
Once the cycle of stops was completed, Heim led the way over Smith with 31 laps remaining.
Heim’s lead over Smith remained steady at about 2.5 seconds with 15 laps to go as Eckes ran in third.