Winston-Salem State University senior, Rajah Caruth is walking Black history. Last Friday, Caruth won his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, marking him the first HBCU student and third African-American to do so.
It was a day of firsts for the 21-year-old who said “There’s more to come, for sure,” after winning the national series race. Caruth won the initial Truck Series pole of his career by 0.001 seconds over Christian Eckes.
During a 62-lap green-flag run to the finish, crew chief Chad Walter called Caruth’s No. 71 Chevrolet to pit road early in the cycle. The over-the-wall crew performed a flawless stop, and after other contenders made their stops during the cycle, Caruth inherited the lead on Lap 114 with an advantage over Taylor Gray of nearly two seconds.
That margin enabled Caruth, who led 38 laps, to finish 0.851 seconds in front of fast-closing Tyler Ankrum, who passed Gray for the second spot on Lap 120.
“It’s surreal,” said Caruth. “Thanks so much to (sponsor) HendrickCars.com and Mr. H (Hendrick) for putting me in this thing all year, and with the men and women at Spire.
“So many people have helped me get to this point, and I can’t believe it. I just stayed cool. We lost track position in little portions of the race, and we stayed in the game. … My guys got me a great stop, and we just executed.”
Rajah Caruth is not your everyday student-athlete, not only is he a full-time student at Winston-Salem State University, he’s also a professional driver on NASCAR’s truck series and Xfinity series circuits. For Rajah Caruth, shifting gears between student and professional race car driver, –is all about balance.
Rajah always knew he wanted to attend an HBCU since he was in elementary school, and only one school offered everything he was looking for. “Winston (WSSU) has the motorsport management program and they’re an hour away from everything racing proper I knew it was just the perfect fit”, he said.
“I just emphasized time management and having my priorities in order,” Caruth told WFMY news. I’ve learned how to say no to many things that I may want to participate in and it sucks sometimes because I want to be a student but I have to be balanced because this is my job, it’s my livelihood”, Caruth said.
Caruth is also appreciative of NASCAR’s Drive For Diversity program and says he thinks representation in NASCAR is really important.
“At the end of the day, it’s cool to see the representation changing, not just as drivers, but as pit crew members, engineers, art departments, legal departments, hopefully it’ll be, like that won’t be the tagline anymore, it’ll be more commonplace in the years to come,” Caruth said.
The Truck Series will head east to race at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 16 (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
