Rajah Caruth will return to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series 2025 to defend his 2024 victory. The 22-year-old will drive the No. 71 for Spire Motorsports, backed by NASCAR Hall of Famer Rick Hendrick, this Sunday.
Caruth currently sits 30th in the Truck Series standings with 19 points after having a tough start to the 2025 season. He had two wreck-filled races in Daytona and Atlanta, forcing him to retire early. But Caruth remains confident ahead of the Victoria's Voice Foundation 200, presented by Westgate Resorts 2025 in Las Vegas.
Looking to bounce back, the No. 71 racer took to X (formerly Twitter) to retweet a post by his team, Spire Motorsports, reminding fans of Caruth's 2024 victory. He declared on X:
Trending
"Gotta run it back⚡️"
The Spire Motorsports racer and team both found their first win in the Craftsman Truck Series last year and will be looking to repeat the victory on Saturday, March 15. He started the race in pole position and, guided by the crew chief, Chad Walter, secured the win after a strategic early pit stop. He led the race for 38 laps and finished 0.851 seconds ahead of Tyler Ankrum in his maiden win in a truck. This made him only the third black driver to win a NASCAR race after Bubba Wallace and Wendell Scott.
Rajah Caruth hopes that he can turn around his current season form, repeating last year's feat with his HendrickCars.com-sponsored Chevrolet Silverado. In 2025, he had to endure a challenging start as his Fresh from Florida 250 entry ended in a multi-truck wreck in the last stage with 20 laps left. Veteran racer Michael McDowell caught the rear of a truck and spun, causing the crash that collected multiple contenders. Caruth slid across the track and hit the barriers, damaging the truck.
Atlanta saw a similar fate late for the Spire Motorsports driver in the FR8 208 after a tire failure on Lap 78. Running second at that point, the busted tires made him spin into the pack that followed him as he collected three other trucks, eventually forcing him to retire at the 29th position.
Rajah Caruth's STEM initiative is making motorsports accessible to students
Beyond his on-track ambitions, Rajah Caruth is also making an impact off the track through his STEM education initiative named How STEM Leads to Speed: Racing with Rajah. The NASCAR driver recently launched the program at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., partnering with Microsoft, DC Public Library Foundation, and GM Motorsports.
Caruth, in his interview with Washington Informer TV, said:
"We just announced today our program with 'Racing with Rajah' and Microsoft and GM Motorsports we're all kind of partnering for this cool little synergy. I have a passion about kind of just giving kids here and in general just exposure to different things, with racing being one of them, not even from a driving perspective but whether it's engineering, marketing, business operations, legal stuff." [0:17 onwards]
"Ideally, this program would help get more people into racing, but that's not really the ultimate goal of it for me. I think it's just to help a young adult learn something new and just be exposed to a new experience and new knowledge," Rajah Caruth added.
Caruth, a graduate of an HBCU, has long advocated for diversity in motorsports. Through his program, he will help the participants gain hands-on experience with simulator sessions, engineering lessons, and mechanical insights into race cars. This could make motorsports more accessible to underrepresented communities, inspiring the next generation of engineers, mechanics, and drivers.
