ARCA at Daytona: Corey Heim holds off local racer Daniel Dye to cap off dominant day

DAYTONA BEACH — Corey Heim started on the pole, dominated the race, and crossed the stripe first to win Saturday's ARCA opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Heim held off a strong push from local racer Daniel Dye, a Father Lopez student, during a frantic final few laps that saw a pair of big wrecks. The first, a multi-car pileup with four laps to go, stacked the field up for one final restart.

Dye restarted in the second row behind Heim, but didn't have enough to get around the polesitter who led 74 of the 80 laps.

"Staying out of trouble was fine by me," said Dye, who will race full time in the ARCA Menard Series this year for GMS Racing.

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Dye, the son of local car dealer Randy Dye, won his first career ARCA race last summer, and competed in a handful of events in 2020 for Ben Kennedy, NASCAR's current Vice President of Strategy and Innovation.

"We're racing for points this year," Dye continued. "I would love to win a championship ... I'm glad I finished third. Our Chevy was rolling pretty good all day. We got shuffled to the back a little but got back to third. I'm just glad to get out of here clean."

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Corey Heim wins Daytona ARCA race despite push from Daniel Dye, Tim Richmond