Celebration over, it's back to work for NASCAR Truck winner Rajah Caruth
Since becoming the third Black driver in NASCAR history to win a national series race last week, Rajah Caruth has received more than 600 congratulatory texts and a request from the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
For as much as his phone showed him how many people were excited for his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory March 1 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it also brought the 21-year-old back to reality Monday.
The Winston-Salem State University senior, who will graduate in December, checked his schedule on his phone when asked by a reporter about upcoming assignments. Caruth’s eyebrows arched when he saw he had a chapter assignment due Tuesday for his managerial accounting class.
Caruth grimaced.
“Ahh great,” he said.
Three days after that, he has a physical science class assignment due. Caruth is among the few drivers who have had to balance college and a NASCAR racing career. But that’s not surprising because Caruth is unique in so many ways.
Unlike nearly all his competitors, Caruth didn’t start racing at an early age. He became a fan of racing after watching the animated movie “Cars,” which debuted in 2006. He wore a Jimmie Johnson uniform for Halloween in the second grade. With no tracks near his Washington, D.C. home, and the prohibitive costs with motorsports, Caruth settled for racing on a computer for years.
His training came via iRacing, a simulation racing program. He was the first driver in the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program not to have on-track experience. Caruth began competing in a Legends car — a 5/8-scale version of the NASCAR modifieds that ran in the sport’s early days — in June 2019 on a quarter-mile track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. His debut came days shy of his 17th birthday.
Last week, Caruth joined Wendell Scott and Bubba Wallace as the only Black drivers to win a NASCAR national series race. The NASCAR Hall of Fame has reached out to Caruth, seeking an item from last week's victory to be put on display.
Wendell Scott, who was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015, was the first Black driver to win a NASCAR Cup race in December 1963 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Bubba Wallace has won six Truck races and two Cup races in his career. His most recent Cup victory came Sept. 11, 2022, at Kansas Speedway. The 30-year-old Wallace drives for 23XI Racing, which is co-owned by former NBA superstar Michael Jordan and Cup driver Denny Hamlin.
Caruth said it has been “surreal” in the days since his victory.
“I think one thing that was pretty cool, honestly, just kind of the respect of my fellow competitors, like guys I have had differences with or raced hard with over the last couple of years and seeing them just say ‘good job’ or saying I deserved it and did it the right way,” Caruth told reporters during a Zoom session Monday.
He admits the victory hasn’t sunk in, although part of that is because he’s focused on preparing for the next Truck Series race, which is March 16 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Caruth’s victory is part of a string of wins from graduates of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program this season. This year marks 20 years since the advent of the program.
Graduates of that program have won in each of the first three weeks of the NASCAR season. Nick Sanchez won the Craftsman Truck race at Daytona International Speedway. Daniel Suarez won the Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Caruth won the Truck race last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Kyle Larson won the Cup race there.
“Hopefully, we continue over the years to continue to grow more representation because we see it on our pit crews, and we are starting to see in race teams, whether it be through our engineering or PR departments, obviously at NASCAR,” Caruth said. “So hopefully, you start to see it more through the drivers so that way that’s not like the headline.”
Max Siegel oversees the Driver for Diversity program through his race team, Rev Racing. He took over the program 16 years ago and created an academy-style training program.
“The frustrating part for a lot of people and me a little bit early on was like ‘When are getting someone to the national level? Because there’s no one there,'” Siegel said in an interview with NBC Sports in October 2023 during the Drive for Diversity combine that determined the members of the 2024 class.
“We said it takes time to develop the talent. We’re very proud of Suarez, Larson and Bubba. But now, I believe you see with Nick and Rajah, the first real young people that didn’t have a whole, whole lot of racing experience, Rajah came up iRacing, and they came in at the youth level and matriculated through the pipeline.”
Wallace has been a mentor to Caruth through the years and was excited to see Caruth win this past weekend,
“I was hard on him, but then I had to realize, man, he’s never raced before,” Wallace told NBC Sports in 2022. " ... I had to kind of tone the reins back a little bit and appreciate what he’s been able to do.”
Caruth said Monday that Wallace has been an integral figure in his career.
“He’s been there every step of the way,” Caruth said of Wallace. “He’s held me accountable for things that I needed to clean up. Also, he’s there to support me whenever I do stuff correctly. … It’s been cool to have that relationship with him, and I just feel really thankful.”
