Corey Heim and Treyten Lapcevich had a full contact battle for 2nd place on the final lap of last night’s Valley Star Credit Union 300 at Martinsville that ended in Heim being ambushed by members Treyten Lapcevich’s crew.
Heim led much of the second half of the race but with just over 25 laps to go, Heim lost the lead to Caden Kvapil. Kvapil was pulling away to victory when the final yellow flew, setting up a green, white, checkered. Kvapil was first with Treyten Lapcevich to his outside, Heim was third. Lapcevich made a run at Kvapil but was under fire from Heim, the two got physical for the second spot, allowing Kvapil to get away score the victory.
When the checkered flag flew, Heim finished second, Lapcevich finished third. The two made contact after the checkered flag, Heim claims Treyten hit him, Treyten claims Heim was the aggressor. Either way it ended with two damaged racecars after the checkered flag. Heim called it hard racing until after the flag while Lapcevich expresses his disappointment with the way he and others were raced by Heim.
“He hit me under the curb,” said Heim “We were racing for the win. I thought he was going to jack up the No.88, I was gonna jack up him and I thought it was just hard racing. It didn’t work out but at the end of the day I thought he was going to lift the No.88 up like he did the previous lap. I can’t see what he’s seeing. Then he tried to pin me under the curb and kept turning left and then my right front hopped his left front and destroyed a perfectly good racecar so props to him, that’s really classy.
“Corey’s a good driver, obviously,” said Lapcevich “You can’t argue that and he knew if he got into me there, neither one of us had a shot at a clock. I’m disappointed in him as a driver. I’m not really sure what his plans were there and then killing our car after the checkered too. You saw how Corey raced everyone all race long, how he raced Lee (Pulliam), how he raced Caden (Kvapil). Those cars were obviously trying to pass him clean and he obviously wasn’t the fastest car but Corey would just door them down the straightaway and then when I was passing him, he jacked us up. We don’t race like that. I’m not sure if he comes in thinking he should win or has to win but this is the best Late Model Stock field in the country and a lot of people in that field deserve a shot. So yeah, disappointing for sure.
Full view of the altercation with Corey Heim and the Chad Bryant Racing crew after last nights Valley Star 300 at Martinsville
🎥 OnTourATYL’s @BuddyPulley pic.twitter.com/5f5FSGMvpu
— Above The Yellow Line Media (@ATYLmedia) September 27, 2026
Now the “fight.” It was an ambush, not a fight. When Heim left pit road to walk back to the Nelson Motorsports trailer, two individuals related to the No. 77 team exchanged words with Heim, Heim responded, expletives were exchanged but Heim continued to head back to the trailer. Chad Bryant, owner of Treyten Lapcevich’s No. 77 seemingly comes from nowhere and swings at Heim. Heim gets shoved against the nearby hotdog stand and other crew members jump in with several throwing punches at Heim, few of them, if any connect.
Even more puzzling is that Lapcevich, a notably even keel guy, was walking down to confront Heim in the moments after the checkered flag but Chad Bryant stopped Lapcevich before he got there. This was at least ten-minutes before Bryant and crew ambushed Heim.
Heim took to twitter with some tongue and cheek humor saying, “Solid effort, but at least make it count next time.” The hotdog sign in the Martinsville infield caught a stray in the process.
Solid effort, but at least make it count next time 😂 https://t.co/6Vly9N4GE1 pic.twitter.com/LheQbvetSV
— Corey Heim (@CoreyHeim_) September 27, 2026
