CORONADO — Corey Heim won the inaugural Anduril 250 on the streets of Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado on Sunday for his first victory in 13 career NASCAR Cup Series races.
The part-time driver for the Michael Jordan co-owned 23XI Racing team took the lead from teammate Tyler Reddick with three laps remaining in the 75-lap, 255-mile race on the 3.4-mile, 16-turn street course.
Reddick slipped in Turn 2 on Lap 73, giving Heim an opening. The teammates ran side by side through Turns 3 and 4, with Reddick trying a crossover move into Turn 5 on the first purpose-built NASCAR circuit on a military installation.
Reddick scraped the outside wall and made contact with Heim’s No. 67 Toyota, pushing him toward the wall, but ceded the position.
Reddick suffered a flat tire while running second with two laps remaining and finished 25th. His series lead over 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin dropped to eight points. Hamlin finished 14th.
Reddick was the first driver to win each of the series’ first three races.
Another 23XI Racing driver, Bubba Wallace, finished second, 10.365 seconds behind Heim.
Heim started 13th in the 39-car field and finished 17th in the race’s 20-lap first stage and 21st in the second stage, which ended after Lap 40.
“After Stage 2, I just took a deep breath,” said Heim, who will turn 24 on July 5. “I had high expectations coming into this race. Just kind of took a deep breath, reset and went after it.”
Heim completed the race in 3 hours, 36 minutes, 50 seconds with an average speed of 70.561 mph.
Heim will be a full-time driver for 23XI Racing in 2027, the team announced May 30.
Ryan Blaney won Stage 1 under a yellow caution flag that came out with two laps remaining after Wallace lost a right-front wheel following a pit stop, drawing a two-lap penalty.
After a Ricky Stenhouse Jr. caution on Lap 13, Brent Crews subbed into the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota for Christopher Bell, who continues to recover from a fractured wrist suffered in a wreck during the FireKeepers Casino 400 on June 7 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan.
Ryan Preece won Stage 2, passing Riley Herbst for the lead with two laps remaining.
Pole-sitter Shane van Gisbergen was knocked out of the race in a multicar crash on Lap 32, triggered when Austin Hill and Connor Zilisch crashed together while battling for the lead on a restart. Hill and Zilisch also failed to finish.
The race was run under caution for 11 of its 75 laps. There were 30 lead changes among 13 drivers. Blaney led a race-high 12 laps across three stints at the front. Kyle Larson took the lead from him on Lap 49, and Blaney was unable to regain it.
Van Gisbergen led the first three laps and Laps 12 through 15.
The only laps Heim led were the final three.
The New Zealand-born van Gisbergen’s seven Cup Series victories on street and road courses are tied for third all-time with Chase Elliott, behind eight-time winner Tony Stewart and nine-time winner Jeff Gordon.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth participated in Sunday’s pre-race ceremony as the honorary starter and visited sailors aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, which was docked next to the course.
The course was the fifth-longest in NASCAR Cup Series history. The longest was the 4.17-mile Daytona Beach and Road Course, which hosted 10 races from 1949 to 1958.
