Kevin Harvick Predicts ‘Embarrassment and Nuclear Meltdown’ if Corey Heim and Conor Zilisch Fails to Win Championships

Ex-NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick believes no one other than Corey Heim and Conor Zilisch deserves the 2025 lower division titles.

Kevin Harvick Predicts ‘Embarrassment and Nuclear Meltdown’ if Corey Heim and Conor Zilisch Fails to Win Championships

Conor Zilisch, Kevin Harvick and Corey Heim (Via IMAGO)

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While the NASCAR Cup Series championship witnessed one of the most competitive seasons ever, with multiple drivers consistently in the fight for race wins, two racing prodigies were dominating the lower divisions. With 11 wins 23XI Racing’s Corey Heim dominated for Tricon Garage while Trackhouse’s Conor Zilisch made it into finale with 10 wins for JR Motorsports.

According to 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick, there is not a single driver in the lower divisions that deserves to win the championship more than Corey Heim and Conor Zilisch on the latest episode of the Happy Hour podcast. He predicts nuclear meltdown among the fans if the duo fails to win the title for one reason or another, as it will exposes the big issue with the format yet again.

Here’s what I think is interesting. When you look at Corey Heim’s stats compared to everybody else — if he doesn’t win this championship, it’s going to be a nuclear meltdown, if they don’t change the points to the correct way at the end of the year. It shouldn’t even be a question of who the champion is in the Truck Series. It shouldn’t be a question of who the champion is in the Xfinity Series.

Kevin Harvick said via Happy Hour podcast.

He asserted that if the duo that have won more than ten races a season, produced the most dominant seasons of the respective series’ history, it’s going to be an embarrassment and the cue that time has come to scrap the system. NASCAR needs the duo to succeed in order to safeguard the credibility of the format.

If Connor Zilisch and Corey Heim don’t win these championships, it’s exactly why we don’t need the system we have. It’s embarrassing…Corey Heim has a hundred more points than the next guy. … I can tell you, if Tyler Ankrum wins the championship and Corey Heim doesn’t, it’s embarrassing to the Truck Series.

Kevin Harvick added.

At the moment both the races have the momentum on their side. In the last 20 races, Zilisch has finished outside the top-5 just twice, but it coming in the last two weeks makes it bot concerning. On the other hand, Heim hasn’t finished outside the top-3 in the last ten races, winning seven in this period, making him the more of a favorite than his Xfinity counterpart.

Kevin Harvick reveals how demanding is the NASCAR playoffs

But it isn’t going to easy weekend for the young duo, as they are set to face the most challenging race of their career. Kevin Harvick in a separate interview, explained how much pressure the one race championship format put on drivers and asserted that considering everything that is happening around the weekend, no driver can approach it as a normal weekend.

Kevin Harvick
Kevin Harvick (Via @KevinHarvick/X)

You can’t treat it as a normal week. You have to treat it differently, knowing that the normal flow of your week is not the same… The flow of your weekend will never match the flow of any of the rest of the races for the year because there’s [so much] …There’s no way that you can treat it the same. But you’ve got to be able to manage it.

Kevin Harvick said.

The weekend is going to be bit easier for the TRD youngster Heim, as he has experienced the pressure twice before with the same team, but both of those years he didn’t have this much pressure of expectations. For Zilisch, it is his maiden championship-4 race and making his Cup debut next-season as a rookie Xfinity champion will be a massive career boost for the Chevy star racer.

Also Read: Christopher Bell Declares Chase Briscoe “Exceeded Expectations” in 2025