Caruth Fends Off Heim & Riggs For Music City Truck Score

Rajah Caruth celebrates in victory lane Friday night at Nashville Superspeedway. (HHP/Jim Fluharty photo)

LEBANON, Tenn. – Thirty-one races after his maiden NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory a year ago, Rajah Caruth strummed a winning tune by collecting the Gibson guitar trophy for winning Friday night’s Rackley Roofing 200 at Nashville Superspeedway.

Caruth led 61 of the 150 laps under the lights en route to his second win in 62 Truck Series starts.

The 22-year-old Washington, D.C., native fought off a threatening late charge from both Corey Heim and Layne Riggs to take his first win of the year, launching himself from behind the cutline to a secure spot in the Truck Series playoffs as a result.

Breaking a drought dating back to March 2024 at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway, Caruth reached the finish line in front by .518 seconds to give Spire Motorsports its fourth victory of the Truck Series season as a team – following in the footsteps of Cup Series stars Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, and Carson Hocevar.

Caruth told Motorsports Hotspot that going into this season’s playoffs, not much is going to change as far as how they tackle the postseason now that they know they’re in the fight for a championship.

“I think it’s just reassurance in my process,” explained Caruth. “[The process] is good; there’s always things I can tweak on it, but it’s good to kind of put myself in the mindset of just, using the tools from Chevy, and Josh [Wise] and Scott [Speed]. I literally have like six notebooks filled with personal notes that I have amassed over the last two or three years, and it’s just about trusting in that foundation.

“I would really say it’s not much of a confidence swing now that we have the win, but it’s just reassurance in my process more than anything. I think that’s kind of where my mind’s at.”

The victory also marked Caruth’s second top-10 finish in three races at Nashville. From those statistics, it’s not hard to see why he ranks it among his best tracks on the circuit.

“I think for Nashville in particular, I think I have more confidence coming here than any other track. I feel like Kansas, Nashville, Bristol are my best tracks,” Caruth noted. “We led laps at Bristol, and ran up front at Kansas. Really glad to get the [win] tonight.”

The No. 71 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet finished third in both stage one and stage two, but leapfrogged to the point after his Spire pit crew gained him two spots on pit road during the second stage break.

The stop went the opposite direction for Front Row Motorsports’ Riggs, who fell back six spots.

With 47 laps to go, Caruth made the perfect restart to open the final segment, quickly pulling out to a comfortable advantage. Meanwhile, Riggs was able to close the gap on the leaders considerably after his bad pit stop, gaining nearly two and a half seconds over the run.

It generated the excitement of Caruth, Heim, and Riggs all converging under a blanket in a frantic fight for the race win down the stretch.

As Caruth navigated through lap traffic with 12 to go, polesitter Heim was gaining for one final push.

With six laps to go, Heim made a last chance move into turn one, getting to the right-rear fender of Caruth’s Chevrolet in an attempt to loosen up the No. 71 in the center of the corner.

The move didn’t hold, however, and sent Heim falling back into the clutches of Riggs from there. That duo touched another time in their battle for second in the waning moments, while Caruth pulled away.

Heim finished second after almost running down Caruth in the last few laps. Fresh off a Memorial Day weekend victory at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, he hoped to make it five wins on the year after pacing 58 laps on the night.

“I feel like just clean air was the main thing tonight,” said Heim, who started from the pole after qualifying was washed out by earlier rain showers and also won stage two. “With the third stage being so straightforward with lack of strategy and going green there, I feel like it was tough to come back from not having the lead. I just slipped through my box on the last stop and didn’t do my guys any favors. It’s something to reflect on for my part, but congrats to Rajah; he did an awesome job managing from the lead.

“I was really free behind him and he made pretty much the right choice every time as far as where I was going to go,” he continued. “It’s nice racing against people that aren’t going to wreck you racing for the lead, so that part was cool.”

Coming home in third was Riggs, who led 30 laps of the race, including topping the first stage. Friday was his third top-10 finish in three races at Nashville, the same place his father Scott won a guitar trophy at in 2002.

Fourth was McAnally-Hilgeman Racing’s Daniel Hemric, while sprint car standout Corey Day rounded out the top five for his best Truck Series finish in 10 career starts.

Kaden Honeycutt, Chandler Smith, Ty Majeski, Bayley Currey, and Grant Enfinger closed the top 10.

Lebanon, Tenn., young gun Dawson Sutton put together a solid outing in his second start at his home NASCAR track, ending the night 11th.

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and Atlanta Truck Series winner Kyle Busch showed promise early on, but faded later en route to a disappointing 15th-place finish.

Frankie Muniz had woes from the very start, with an oil leak taking his Reaume Brothers Racing Ford out of contention and creating the first yellow flag of the night on lap two. Muniz finished last in the 32-truck field.

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series moves next to the two-mile Michigan Int’l Speedway, where broadcast coverage of the DQS Solutions & Staffing 200 powered by Precision Vehicle Logistics airs Saturday, June 7 at 12 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.