To many who watched Corey Heim win his maiden Cup title on Sunday, a brewing rivalry between him and Carson Hocevar was obvious. Since 2023, the two have had a couple of dust-ups that served as the kindling for the fire, and it was visible at Naval Base Coronado. Heim isn’t even trying to hide his true intentions.

“At the end of the day, he wiped me out for a championship, so I’m always gonna have to kind of hold that grudge against him,” Heim told Jeff Gluck recently on the Gluck Cast. “I didn’t have any intent to turn him around on Sunday, but when he was sitting there looking at me after spinning out, I wasn’t mad about it either.

“I lost a lot of respect for him as a race car driver that day. I don’t hate him as a person. I’m not gonna give him any room, and he’s not gonna give me any either. But at the end of the day, I don’t like how he races on the race track, and I won’t race him good either. I’m not taking it personally.”

The race itself was a slugfest. Heim was running third with ten laps remaining in Andruil 250, closing hard on Hocevar in second. Just then, Heim bumped into the back bumper of Hocevar’s No. 77 Chevrolet as they entered a corner and sent him spinning. Then, Michael Jordan’s racer outdueled his 23XI Racing teammate Tyler Reddick to clinch a win. Hocevar, meanwhile, limped home on the 19th.

But even though he lost his chance at the title, Hocevar wasn’t as upset.

“I didn’t know if he got hit from behind,” Carson Hocevar said after the race, before noting he thought he could win. “I thought so. I thought we were going to have a lap advantage, and I ran my fastest lap of the race on that run. So I don’t know. I think we definitely could have had a shot there. We were kind of catching them, catching the 5 compared to the 67 there. We had pace to have at least a shot up there.”

Turns out, Heim was giving Hocevar a taste of his own medicine.

“Had to spin out Hocevar to win it. #77 will remember,” one NASCAR fan showed their displeasure at Heim. But the winner had a much better response. Corey Heim clapped back with an old clip of Hocevar talking to another driver, basically revealing his strategy in every race:

“Well just get the (expletive) out of the way and there wouldn’t be a wreck, you know what I mean? Just move. Just move out of the way.”

But their dust-ups are not recent. Rewind to the 2023 Truck Series championship race at Phoenix. Heim grabbed the virtual points lead with about 120 laps to go. Hocevar wanted it back, banged into his rear quarter panel, and spun him out. Heim didn’t let it slide. Later that same race, he drove Hocevar straight into the wall and took them both out of the championship.

Hocevar talked about all of it later on The Dale Jr. Download, calling the wreck “four years coming.” But here’s the thing: he doesn’t actually hate Heim. He said he’s “looking forward to racing his a– off for 20 years.” Heim, meanwhile, said that he believes Hocevar is a funny person off the track. But we all know this could very well turn into a rivalry soon. Hocevar just got a small taste of what he’s signed up for. The next 20 years should be fun.