Can Corey Heim Win Rookie Of The Year As A Part-Timer?

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is just two races away from beginning its playoffs, and nine races away from the end of the season.

While the championship battle is obviously the most talked about competition within a season, there’s another battle that happens every year that doesn’t get as much attention until the end-of-season awards banquet: The Rookie of the Year battle.

In the Truck Series, especially with nine races left, it is crunch time for the rookies. Despite not being an entirely deep rookie field this year, they are still running pretty close to each other in points, which should make for an interesting battle down the stretch.

First, there are Niece Motorsports teammates, Lawless Alan and Dean Thompson. Each of them has made select starts in the Truck Series in the past, but they both joined Niece Motorsports for the full 2022 season.

Jack Wood jumped ship from the ARCA Menards Series to the Truck Series, driving GMS Racing’s No. 24 for the full season. Then there’s Blaine Perkins, who has made select starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and is the only full-timer to have failed to qualify for a race (Martinsville Speedway).

Alan currently leads the ROTY standings. However, there is one driver who could throw a whole wrench in the full-time drivers’ dreams of being Rookie of the Year: Corey Heim.

Heim is part of Kyle Busch Motorsports’ rotation in the No. 51 truck and is currently scheduled to drive it the rest of the season after Busch and Buddy Kofoid shared the ride up to this point. And because of this, he has a rare opportunity ahead of himself: He could win the Rookie of the Year title, despite not competing the entire season.

Heim has already proven himself to be deserving of a full-time ride with KBM, as he has won twice already this season, at Atlanta Motor Speedway and World Wide Technology Raceway. However, outside of a seventh-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway, Heim has failed to crack the top 20 in every other start this season.

Despite this, he has a chance to take the rookie point lead from Alan, the current leader. So how is this possible?

Well, it’s worth restating that the rookie class of 2022 is not that deep. Aside from Heim, none of the rookies have a top 10. The highest finish of any of the rookies came from Alan and Thompson, who both have a best finish of 11th, respectively.

Each of the rookie contenders are either mid-pack drivers or compete in mid-pack equipment.

Perkins is all but…