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What is Rajah Caruth’s Path to the Cup Series?

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What’s Happening?

Rajah Caruth is one of Chevrolet’s most promising prospects. After showing great speed in past seasons, in 2024, Rajah materialized into one of the best pure prospects in the Chevrolet camp. With the season coming to an end, many are wondering what Rajah’s path to the Cup Series could be. So, what are Caruth and Chevrolet’s options?

  • Rajah Caruth began his way through NASCAR’s touring series in 2021. That year, he started races in all three ARCA Series. However, in 2023, Rajah added a full-time ARCA Menards Series schedule alongside a part-time Truck and Xfinity Series schedule.
  • 2022 resulted in a full-time Truck Series schedule with GMS Racing and more part-time Xfinity starts. While his results were inconsistent, a one-off Xfinity start with Hendrick Motorsports at Phoenix seemed to spark new life in the young driver.
  • This year, in the truck Series with Spire Motorsports and full support from Hendrickcars.com, Rajah has one win, five top-fives, 11 top-tens, and two poles.

The Traditional Route:

The traditional route is the one we all know and love. This includes full-time action at each level of the NASCAR National Truck Series.

Many drivers have taken this route, including Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, and William Byron. The Truck, Xfinity, to Cup route, as boring as it is, has an equally successful and unsuccessful track record.

The advantages of this route mostly revolve around giving drivers the time they need to find comfort at each level to learn, improve, and win. However, this does come at the disadvantage of stalling out. Several drivers, like Hailie Deegan, have burnt out on this route.

This route is extremely realistic for Rajah and could benefit him with part-time starts at the Xfinity and Cup Series level in the future. But, as previously mentioned, drivers can get stuck at one level going this route.

Un-Traditional Options

Some untraditional routes include mixing both part-time and full-time schedules at different levels before jumping to the Cup Series. For example, Ty Gibbs never started a Truck Series race on his route to the Cup Series but combined ARCA and Xfinity schedules along the way.

This route has one major disadvantage: pure inconsistency. The constant jumping around from car to car works very poorly for many drivers.

Rajah, who has taken this route in prior seasons, has thrived under the consistency of racing in just one series this season. Those who thrive under this route seem to gain confidence from winning in good equipment despite the consistency.

This is a realistic route for Rajah. However, Chevy seems to want him to work at one level at a time.

Trucks to Full-Time Cup?

So what if you could combine racing full-time in one series at a time but hot-shot your way to the Cup Series at the same time? Well, that option does exist, and one of Rajah’s Spire teammates has taken this route.

This year, when Spire Motorsports called Carson Hocevar up to the Cup Series from the Truck Series after limited time in Xfinity, most fans called the move premature. However, Hocevar has outperformed his teammates and is the current Rookie of the Year leader.

The sudden jump is a disadvantage, but perhaps this route could work for Rajah. Most expect him to race again full-time in the Truck Series next year, and with a rumored Spire part-time Cup Series car, perhaps that could be an open door for Rajah to leap.

While we don’t know what route Rajah will take, the NASCAR world is watching him closely. Chevy will have to be very careful about the route they send the young driver. Nevertheless, he has already improved this season, and perhaps more is on the way.

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Kauy Ostlien

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