Corey Heim fends off Kyle Busch to win NASCAR Truck Series race at Martinsville 

Corey Heim emerged as the victor of Long John Silver's 200 NASCAR Truck Series race at the Martinsville Speedway on Friday (April 14). Heim's road to victory was not easy due to inclement weather conditions and multiple restarts in the rain-affected race.

Heim, in his #11 Toyota Tundra, drove well in wet and dry conditions and held off veteran driver Kyle Busch, who was hot on his heels for the entirety of the rain-shortened race. Sweeping both stages, Heim led 82 of the 124 laps of the race and was in the lead when NASCAR decided to throw a red flag and declare the race.

NASCAR decided to use wet weather tires for the start of the race after it was delayed by heavy showers. This marked the first time an oval race in the sport started with wet weather tires. The stint on these tires lasted about 28 laps, after which a competition caution was thrown for a change to slicks. All drivers behaved well without a single on-track incident in the first stint.

On the ensuing restart, Corey Heim stunned everyone with an overtake on the outside of Kyle Busch to lead the race. From there, Heim drove brilliantly defending against his former boss Busch and reigning Truck Series champion Zane Smith.

Winning his first race of the season, he took home the famed one-of-a-kind grandfather clock Martinsville trophy.

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Long John Silver's 200

The #11 TRICON Garage driver credited his crew and his team for the race win as he said:

"This race was cut short and that’s definitely unfortunate, but this truck was fast all night, I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys."

He added:

"I bring a 100-percent effort to every race every week so to be able to sit here and have it pay off is phenomenal."

Busch finished second in the race ahead of Smith. Ty Majeski continued his impressive top-five run by finishing fourth. Corey Heim's TRICON garage teammate Tanner Gray rounded off the top five.

Majeski leads the drivers' standings 26 points ahead of Smith as the Truck Series takes a couple of weeks off before returning on May 6 at the Kansas Speedway.

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Kyle Busch explains why he couldn't overtake Corey Heim

Kyle Busch, driving the #51 Chevy for Kyle Busch Motorsports, ran behind Corey Heim for the majority of the race. He explained that his truck wasn't at its best on the paperclip oval in Martinsville. Busch said:

"We just didn’t have a good enough short run truck, Being a little bit loose and free that we were, we were hoping that would pay off in the long run but never had a long run. The longest run of the race was on rain tires. It did not go our way today, unfortunately."

In his three appearances in the Truck Series this year, the #51 driver has finished has won a race and finished second on two other occasions.