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With the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series 2023 season now in full-swing, we at the Daily Downforce thought it’d be fun to introduce one of the most impressive youngsters in the third-tier series. Obviously, he currently drives the No. 24 Chevy Silverado for GMS Racing but how much do you really know about Rajah Caruth? Well, buckle up and prepare for this deep dive in 2023’s fan favorite trucker.
First, though, here is a little fun fact about the GMS driver…he tells jokes.
At just 20 years old, @rajahcaruth_ is climbing up the #NASCAR ranks.
Living in #Concord, he’s also a student at @WSSURAMS — and got some mean jokes! 😩😂
On OYST at 7 p.m., more on his path to @nascar, juggling being a student-athlete and the push for diversity. @WBTV_News pic.twitter.com/WO5no1hByL— Brandon Hamilton (@BHAMonTV) March 15, 2023
Like any future driver who wants to break into the NASCAR scene, Rajah Caruth was a fan first. The first race he ever attended was in Richmond, Virginia for one of the two stops there on the NASCAR Xfinity (then Nationwide) Series schedule.
He was 12-years old. After being a fan for many years, it wasn’t until experiencing his first race live and in person when he really caught the bug and new that driving stock cars was what he wanted to do with his life.
In a NASCAR.com interview with Tadd Haislop, Rajah had the following to say about his NASCAR upbringing and how he fell in love with the sport.
“I was a die-hard (NASCAR fan) before then, but I think that race, seeing everything, it emphasized it. As a kid, you don’t think about having to have a job. Sometimes you know what you want to do, but you don’t understand you’ve got to work. From day forward, it was like, ‘OK, this is what I want my life’s work to be.’ I still obviously wanted to be a race-car driver. But that day, it was like, ‘OK, this is my purpose.’”
Only four years after attending his first NASCAR race, Caruth competed professionally for the first time via the eNASCAR Ignite Series. He juggled practice three times a week as well as his first summer job. He got better and better and, by season’s end, he was 20th in the final eNASCAR point standings. In an interview with Tadd Haislop, Caruth had the following to say about his formative years as a racer.
“That summer, I had gotten on iRacing on June 11, on my 16th birthday. The Ignite Series started on the 18th. And those first two weeks I wasn’t that good, but I spent more and more time on it and got better and better. And actually, during that summer, I not only had my second-ever summer job, but I also had track practice three times a week. Work every day, track three times a week. When I wasn’t doing those things, I was on my rig. I say rig, but it was literally a wheel on the desk with my laptop.”
Caruth, being a part of NASCAR’s Drive For Diversity Program, signed with Rev Racing in 2019. He was a somewhat of an oddity heading into the 2019 season as he was a driver who had experience almost exclusively through iRacing. He made his first start in a real racecar that very season, competing in the Bojangles Summer Shootout Legend’s Cars race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. There, he would go onto finish an impressive 13th place.
In 2022 prior to the first race held at the newly reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway, Rajah put his iRacing abilities on full display, driving a No. 6 NASCAR on FOX car around the virtual track. Here, the network caught up with Rajah as he took us all on this racing experience.
Heading into the 2020 motorsports season, Caruth started his climb up the NASCAR ranks by making a handful of late model starts. He raced primarily in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series. He make 19 starts that season and capture his first win at the Greenville-Pickens Speedway.
In the following year of 2021, Caruth would return to the weekly series and score three more victories, two at the legendary Hickory Speedway of Hickory, North Carolina and his fourth one coming at Tri-County Motor Speedway.
When he wasn’t running late models, however, he was running full-time for Rev Racing in the ARCA Menards East Series division. While he would not capture a win in the 2021 season, he did end the season with 2-top 5 finishes and 3-top 10s.
He would go on to run a handful more East Series races, a few West Series races, and make his debut in the main ARCA Menards Series in 2022. He would run full-time for Rev Racing and while he did not capture any wins that season, he would finish a career high 2nd at Kansas to teammate Nick Sanchez.
He goes through his weekend experiences here on his YouTube channel as he scores his career-best ARCA finish.
In December of 2020, it was reported that Rajah Caruth, who has been a driver at Rev Racing since 2019, would be leaving, heading over to Chevy Truck Series juggernaut, GMS Racing. Caruth was said to be driving the No. 24 truck.
Shortly after the announcement and as sponsorships started falling into place, it was announced that the Wendel Scott would sponsor the truck series up-and-comer intermittently throughout the 2023 truck season.
Rajah Caruth’s 2023 Truck Series season hasn’t started off ideal, however, as he went for two-straight 29th-place finishes at Daytona and Las Vegas respectively. At Daytona, he was caught up in a big one on Lap 58.
Though the start to the 2023 has been a little rocky, Caruth is still holding his head high. It’s a learning curve and he’s ready to tackle it, for all the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Speaking with I AM ATHLETE, Rajah Caruth stated that seeing Bubba Wallace’s success and the way he has overcome adversity gave him the confidence he needed, as a person of color, to forge on through the sport.
With his online vlogs and interactions with popular YouTubers and podcasters, Rajah Caruth has certainly gained a significant following online. The fans are loving him and we at the Daily Downforce are too as he’s living the dream anyone whom has ever fired up a console NASCAR game or logged into iRaceing could ever imagine: He’s a racer.
