In his second full-time season as a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver, Rajah Caruth has shown signs of growth within Spire Motorsports’ young truck program.
The deal with Spire was only announced just over a week before the season started at Daytona International Speedway, and Caruth found backing from Rick Hendrick and HendrickCars.com. After finishing third and eighth at Daytona and Atlanta Motor Speedway, Caruth picked up his first career victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March.
Despite the strong start, however, Caruth recorded only four more top-10 finishes in the next 13 races leading up to the playoffs. Caruth opened up the playoffs at the Milwaukee Mile in 18th, but his worst finish since is seventh at Kansas Speedway. That includes a third-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway and fourth at Talladega Superspeedway.
Overall, Caruth accomplished two of his goals entering the season: win a race, and make the playoffs. However, he hopes to find some consistency and contend to make the Championship 4.
Frontstretch spoke with Caruth ahead of the Friday (Oct. 4) Truck race at Talladega, where he shared his outlook for the remaining races as well as the work he puts in to get ready for a superspeedway versus other tracks. Caruth also feels a championship appearance is well within reach given his skill sets at the next two races.
Read or watch the whole interview below.
Barnes: Looking at the next round, you’ve got Talladega, Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway. How are you feeling about this round?
Caruth: I feel like we’ve got a really good chance to be one of the four in Phoenix. I think personally, this race here, Talladega, there’s only so much in your control. So I just have to execute my part as a driver, and I know my guys over the wall and up on top of the pit box and spotter stand will do their job to.
Hopefully it’s a good day for us. It doesn’t have to be spectacular, but it definitely has to be a good day for sure.
Barnes: How do you prepare for a weekend like this? Obviously, you’re big into iRacing, but do you use a lot of sim going into Talladega, or do you play DRAFTYCAR to get ready?
Caruth: I’ve never played DRAFTYCAR, but I don’t play that many games on my phone to be honest with you. I’ve never really gotten into that.
I’ve done a little bit of iRacing. They’ve got the Next Gen…
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