It was a long wild weekend but Rajah Caruth brought home his car in one piece in Sunday night’s Xfinity Series race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.
The Xfinity race was originally scheduled for Saturday night but a combination of rain and even some snow pushed the race to Sunday night after the conclusion of the Cup Series race. Practice and qualifying was cancelled over the weekend, which put Caruth in the no. 20 spot to start the race. Caruth was in a battle for a top 20 finish all the way down to the last lap, ultimately finishing 21st just behind Parker Retzlaff.
Twenty six of the 38 drivers in the field finished on the lead lap of the 150 lap race. The race was won by John Hunter Nemechek with five of the top ten finishers starting outside of the top ten.
The race was an uphill battle early on with a nice rally by Caruth. He finished 31st after the first stage of the race, losing 11 positions. After stage two Caruth dropped back to 33rd, but moved up 12 spots by the end of the race.
Caruth is in his first year of a full time schedule in the NASCAR Craftsmen Truck Series while still running a partial schedule in the Xfinity Series. The next race for Caruth will be March 5 in Las Vegas.