Have you checked your clock lately? 23XI might need to adjust their time zone.
2025 has been a year of further expansion for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin's 23XI team. The outfit debuted in 2021 as a one-car organization with Bubba Wallace, then went to two cars the next season with Kurt Busch.
In only their fifth season, 23XI is up to three full-time rides. After plenty of rumors of who would drive the No. 35 car, Riley Herbst was announced for 2025.
Why Riley Herbst?
It wasn't a choice that set the world on fire: Herbst, 26, has just three Xfinity Series wins to his name over five full-time seasons with Gibbs and Stewart-Haas.
Although, all three wins came within the previous two seasons, on his way to a career-best seventh-place championship finish.
It was a safe choice, really — besides hoping to strike while the iron was hot, Herbst is good at delivering decent results: 22 top-15s in 2024.
It's reasonable to expect a little bit of growing pains, but Herbst, after finishing 17th three consecutive times to start his rookie year in Cup, has finished in the top-20 just twice over the most recent nine races. Still to this day, his best two finishes in the Cup Series came in his debut for Rick Ware Racing at the 2023 Daytona 500 and at Talladega for Front Row later that year.
This isn't to say Herbst is damaged goods, but when you've got a team headlined by a title contender in Tyler Reddick and an underrated and overly maligned Bubba Wallace, you can't be so far off that pace and justify holding the seat for too long.
Especially when we know what's waiting in the wings.
Heim Time
If it wasn't Herbst taking the third spot at 23XI, Corey Heim seemed like the next choice.
Heim, still just 22, has been in the Toyota stable since his ARCA days in 2020, and has been a consistent contender for wins from the moment he joined Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Truck Series at 18 years old.
Running a limited schedule in 2022, Heim won twice and finished top-15 in points despite not having run in seven races. In his first full-time season: three wins, 12 top-fives and was the dominant driver in the championship race, but got punted by Carson Hocevar.
2024 was another impressive one, but no title again -- six wins and only five total finishes outside the top ten. But he couldn't catch Ty Majeski in the title race and finished second.
Heim has remained in Trucks for 2025, where he has already won three times and only finished lower than eighth once.
Heim's Cup dreams are getting closer: he signed in the offseason as a development driver for 23XI, and he made his first Cup start of 2025 last weekend at Kansas, driving the No. 67.
Was Heim somewhat involved in a crash that took out Wallace late in the race? Well, yes. But it was in the mixed-up chaos of a restart that went four-wide. These things happen.
But when you boil it down to pure numbers here's what we see: Heim was the best finisher on 23XI at Kansas. He finished 13th, Herbst was 27th (Reddick was 17th, Wallace DNFed).
Heim is due to get more shots at Cup this season to prove his worth to a Cup program, hopefully to catapult him up the ranks, rather than more time slogging in Trucks for 2026.
Herbst needs to start looking over his shoulder and producing some results. With his consistency in Trucks and results in Cup, it's reasonable to say that if Heim wins the Truck title this year, there's no reason not to bring him up to the big leagues.