HMS backed Bubba Wallace’s protege wins major NASCAR honor after rookie season

Bubba Wallace's mentee Rajah Caruth won the NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award in the Truck Series category, adding to his accolades at a young age. The 22-year-old participated in his second full-time season, also clinching his first victory in Las Vegas.

Caruth is only the third black driver in the history of NASCAR to have won a national series race, which came down at Las Vegas. Other than that, he remained quite competitive throughout the season, finishing P3 in Daytona and grabbing ten other top-10 finishes. He finished seventh in the standings with 2213 points.

The NMPA Most Popular Driver Award is based solely on fan votes and is given to three drivers across the three national series; Cup, Xfinity, and Truck. Rajah Caruth was joined by Chase Elliott in the Cup Series, and Justin Allgaier in the Xfinity Series, who won the championship this season.

Caruth raced in the ARCA Menards Series between 2021 and 2022 and debuted in the Truck Series with Spire Motorsports in 2022 on a part-time schedule. He has also taken part in 19 Xfinity Series races since.

He made his full-time debut in the Truck Series with GMS Racing last season but moved to Spire in 2024. His campaign with the latter has been much more successful. Caruth has been backed with a year-long sponsorship from HendrickCars.com and has had Bubba Wallace as a guide.

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Bubba Wallace on guiding Rajah Caruth: "I've been hard on him"

NASCAR had only witnessed two black drivers in its long history who won a race at the national level- Wendell Scott and Bubba Wallace. However, it soon changed this season when Rajah Caruth won in Las Vegas. He took the chequered flag and made history, becoming only the third black driver to win a national-level NASCAR race.

Celebrating his victory, Bubba Wallace, who has acted as a mentor to him, mentioned that he had been working hard on Caruth since the beginning. He mentioned asking Caruth not to fear the wall while racing in the junior series.

“I’ve been hard on him since Day 1. I will never forget the first time watching him in a Legends car at Charlotte and I got in his face, ‘What are you so afraid of the wall for? You haven’t even hit’,” Wallace said in a statement (quoted by The Chicago Tribune).

“I feel proud to have played a small part in this. And I called him, and he was pumped. But, like, his burnout was lame and his phone call was lame. I was like, ’Come on man, I’m more pumped than you are!’”

Caruth is expected to stay for another season in the Truck Series, likely behind the Chevrolet of Spire.