Rajah Caruth made a bit of NASCAR history in winning the Craftsman Truck Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Friday night.
For one, it was his first career national touring victory and he joins Wendell Scott and Bubba Wallace as the only Black drivers to win on this three biggest stages of NASCAR.
“Surreal, I can’t believe it,” Caruth said during his frontstretch interview. “Thank you to HendrickCars.com and (Rick Hendrick) for putting me in this thing all year, along with the men and women of Spire Motorsports. They’ve put in a lot of work this winter … glad to get the win for Team Chevy.”
Scott won a Grand National Series race at Speedway Park in Jacksonville, Florida on December 1, 1963. Wallace joined Scott on this list on October 26, 2013 when he won in the Truck Series at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.
Wallace has since added five more Truck Series wins and two at the Cup Series level at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama on October 4, 2021 and at Kansas Speedway on September 11, 2022.
For Caruth, the win comes in his 30th start at the third highest level of NASCAR, and came on a night in which he scored pole position in time trials earlier in the night. Caruth led numerous times but ultimately emerged victorious when several other contenders suffered problems during the final round of green flag pit stops.
That included Ty Majeski, who led the most laps and swept both stages, Daytona winner Nick Sanchez and the winningest driver in series history, two-time Cup Series champion, Kyle Busch. Caruth needed to pass Taylor Gray to retake the lead inside the final 25 laps and cruised the rest of the way to score his first win.
“I just had to stay cool,” Caruth said. “We lost track position for a portion of the race. We stayed in the game. It was one step, one punch and one round at a time. The guys gave me a great pit stop and we executed. First of many to come for sure.”