Rajah Caruth started from pole at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 1, 2024. He ran near the front, made a late pit stop with his team and held off the field for his first NASCAR national-series win. It was his 30th Truck Series start.
The victory arrived during a season that had nearly been a partial one. HendrickCars.com had planned to sponsor Caruth’s No. 71 Chevrolet for 10 races, then expanded its commitment to the full season. That support gave Caruth more time in the truck—and a chance to turn a strong run into a winning one.
His route to that starting grid began on a simulator. Caruth entered professional iRacing in 2018 and moved from virtual competition to local tracks, development programs and NASCAR’s national series. The path was unconventional. The years of work between those stages were not.
From iRacing to the Track
Caruth was born in Atlanta and raised in Washington, D.C. After attending a NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond in 2014, he began to picture himself in the sport. Four years later, he competed in the eNASCAR Ignite Series, finishing 20th in the standings. In 2019 he drove a Legends car at Charlotte’s Summer Shootout, his first real-world race.
He kept racing locally, learning in Legends cars and Late Models. Rev Racing brought him into NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity Driver Development Program. In 2020, he won his first NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series race. The following year, he finished third in ARCA Menards Series East points, with two top-five and five top-10 finishes in eight starts. NASCAR gave him the Wendell Scott Trailblazer Award for his performance, sportsmanship and community service.
The simulator helped Caruth practise and learn how to describe a car’s handling. He has also said that online mistakes taught him where his limits were before he faced the higher stakes of a real race.
Through sim racing, I got to a pretty decent level talent-wise quickly, but I made a lot of mistakes on there and honestly still do.
— Rajah Caruth
That first step is less expensive than entering motorsports through a real car. The next ones involve safety equipment, coaching, travel, entry fees and time on track. Caruth’s progression depended on finding opportunities to race in person and continuing to build experience.
The Season that Almost Wasn’t
Caruth drove full time for GMS Racing in the Truck Series in 2023. He finished 16th in the standings and recorded four top-10 results. The Wendell Scott Foundation served as an anchor sponsor, connecting the campaign to Wendell Scott, NASCAR’s first Black national-series race winner.
Spire Motorsports signed him for a full-time Truck Series seat in 2024, but HendrickCars.com’s initial commitment covered 10 races. Caruth later described the winter before the season as uncertain. He did not know where he would be driving and had little funding behind him.
This winter was a lot of uncertainty about where I’d be driving, not having a bunch of funding behind me at the time.
— Rajah Caruth
Caruth’s Las Vegas win made him the third Black driver to win a NASCAR national-series race, after Wendell Scott and Bubba Wallace. He also qualified for the Truck Series playoffs. He won again in 2025 at Nashville Superspeedway, leading 61 of 150 laps and holding off Corey Heim and Layne Riggs for the Rackley Roofing 200.
Results can help a driver attract sponsors. Sponsors, in turn, help teams pay for the cars and staff needed to chase those results. Caruth’s 2024 season made that loop easy to see: the expanded commitment kept him on the track, and the Las Vegas victory gave the season a defining moment.
Moving Up
In 2026, Caruth moved to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, splitting the season between JR Motorsports and Jordan Anderson Racing. At Daytona’s regular-season finale, he secured the last place in the series’ Chase by five points. A late crash damaged his car, but he had done enough to advance.
Caruth has spoken about feeling isolated as a young NASCAR fan in Washington, D.C., where few other children shared his interest in the sport. He now gives Black fans a driver to follow in a national series where Black competitors remain underrepresented. His presence also keeps attention on who gets the money, team access and development time required to reach that level.
NASCAR has described Caruth as the first participant in its Drive for Diversity program to move from competitive iRacing into real-life stock-car racing. His career shows that transition can happen. Making it a path others can use will take opportunities after the simulator: track time, coaching, equipment, sponsors and teams prepared to give new drivers a start.
Caruth has changed the answer to one question: a driver can begin online. Whether NASCAR can turn his experience into a route for more drivers remains to be seen.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Rajah Caruth begin in sim racing?
Yes. He competed in professional iRacing in 2018 and drove a Legends car in 2019 before moving through local racing, ARCA and NASCAR’s national series.
What was Caruth’s first NASCAR national-series win?
He won the Truck Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 1, 2024, in his 30th series start.
How did sponsorship help Caruth?
The Wendell Scott Foundation supported his 2023 Truck Series campaign. HendrickCars.com expanded its planned 10-race sponsorship in 2024 to cover the full season.
Has Caruth won more than once in the Truck Series?
Yes. He won at Nashville Superspeedway in 2025, leading 61 laps and holding off Corey Heim and Layne Riggs.
What did Caruth achieve in the 2026 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series?
He split the season between JR Motorsports and Jordan Anderson Racing, then secured the last Chase spot by five points at Daytona.
