NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Rajah Caruth continues to climb up the points after Saturday night’s race in Bristol. Caruth, a senior at Winston-Salem State University, is now third in points just 22 points out of first place.
Caruth finished in the No. 8 spot in the Weather Guard Truck Race on Saturday night after starting in sixth place. It was a night where Caruth had to come back from a couple of mistakes on pit road. He slid through his pit box on one stop, and pitted outside of the box on another. NASCAR penalized the driver of the No. 71 Chevrolet forcing him to restart at the tail end of the longest line late in the race.
“Pit road, I just really didn’t adjust well for my box with how hot my brakes were and kind of how long my pedal was getting,” said Caruth. “So kind of my fault for the pit stops.”
Rajah Caruth has managed a great start to the 2024 season, finishing in the top ten of each of his four starts, including his first career win last week in Las Vegas.
On top of the success in the points standings has been the positive momentum with sponsorship. Rick Hendrick signed up for sponsoring Caruth for the entirety of the season in the week leading up to the Las Vegas race.
“It was an opportunity at the end of last year to put him in a car, it was a collaboration between Chevrolet and Rick (Hendrick). It was a Hendrick Motorsports effort but it’s really Rick, Rajah’s dad and Chevrolet that had the initial conversations. But what has evolved since then it’s just how impressed we are with him. Rick and I talked about it the other day, we’ve seen him several times and whether it’s at the banquet or at the Hall of Fame, and just every time he’s coming up, shaking our hands, he’s well put together, well spoken, and very driven, very passionate about it. When you see that in a young driver, that’s what you are looking for,” said Jeff Gordon, Vice President of Hendrick Motorsports.