Rajah Caruth on Racing as a Full-Time Student, Developing as a Racer

Rajah Caruth is still quite new to racing … anything.

He acknowledges his overall dearth of experience as compared to his rivals and attempts to overcome it each time he races. Regardless, he’s running full time for the first time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for GMS Racing and part time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for Alpha Prime Racing.

Caruth sat down with Frontstretch‘s Phil Allaway at Texas Motor Speedway to talk about racing in Trucks while going to school, his development, iRacing and more.

Phil Allaway, Frontstretch: Speaking of education, it’s hard to be full time in college and racing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. How do you juggle the two?

Rajah Caruth: Well, Phil, I have some homework due on Sunday that I have not started yet, so that should tell you what it’s like. It’s really two full-time jobs.

Being a racecar driver requires you to be all-in with every part of your personal life, obviously your mental capacity and physical strength. It’s the same for school.

I can’t even say [that it diverts] my focus because I feel like I’m plugged into both entirely. But I have to make sacrifices. A lot of personal sacrifices and decisions about my priorities.

Racing’s my No. 1, and it always will be. It’s paying the bills, and I also feel like it’s my purpose. With that being said, I still think that education is really important. I will do my best to finish my education at Winston-Salem State University.

Allaway: Really hope that’s not a research paper that’s due.

Caruth: It’s not a research paper. I’m not that dumb.

I’ve left research papers and presentations to Sunday night before, but those days are over. I value my sleep. I’m going to be like an old man.

Allaway: It seems like it’s been tough at times with a lot of contact, but how would you describe your season to this point?

Caruth: Man, it seems like the end of races really hasn’t panned out for us. At Daytona, we really just bided our time. We got up into the top 10 following Chase [Elliott], then I made my move since rain was a factor. I kind of got in a bad spot in turn 3 and [the wreck happened].

At Las Vegas, we got stage points. We ran anywhere from seventh to 12th all night. We were going to be in a really good spot with green-flag pit stops. Green-flag pit stops are something that I feel I’m pretty strong at…