Caruth, a 21-year-old iRacer and college student, won Friday night’s Truck Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in impressive fashion, besting a field that included three talented Cup drivers – Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell and Zane Smith.
While collecting his first series win in his third start for Spire Motorsports, Caruth became just the third Black driver to win a race in NASCAR’s three national divisions – Cup, Xfinity and Trucks.
His win came also comes 20 years after the creation of NASCAR’s Driver for Diversity program – of which Caruth was a part – which was initiated to attract more minority and female participation in the sport.
“I guess it’s not easy, right? If you think you’re just going to wake up and be in front of you, it’s not,” Caruth said of his journey. “You just got to put in the work and listen.
“Emphasis on 'listen' because I think about my first years racing on iRacing, learning how to be fast on there, making a lot of mistakes. Honestly, it was kind of the same when I started (racing) in real life.
“I just listened to people that wanted to help me. I put in the work, late nights, early mornings, showing up. I caught some breaks, for sure.”
A long journey
It was only 10 years ago that Caruth – who grew up in Washington, D.C. – attended his first NASCAR race at Richmond, Va.
After he graduated high school in 2020, he moved on his own to North Carolina to pursue a career in racing. He had several strong runs in the ARCA Menards Series but struggled in his first full Truck season last year.
It was only because of a late decision by Cup team owner Rick Hendrick and his HendrickCars.com company to sponsor Caruth that a ride for the 2024 season came to fruition at Spire Motorsports.
But it’s been a whirlwind start to the season, with finishes of third at Daytona, eighth at Atlanta and now the win at Las Vegas, which locks him into the 2024 series playoffs.
“I think tonight, earning the win tonight, racing clean, I learned a lot,” Caruth said. “Hopefully just some validation, right?
“I think for myself it helps just because obviously you have your own doubts. Self-talk is a really important thing. It’s great to kind of get over that hump a little bit. So, I just got to keep going.”
Asked if anything had changed in his approach to racing recently, Caruth insisted he has tried to remain patient and run each race the best he could.
“Now you see what happens when I get in good stuff,” he said. “I’m thankful for that.”
