- Rajah Caruth will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 71 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Silverado in Friday night’s Long John Silver’s 200 at Martinsville Speedway.
- Caruth started 11th and finished 15th in the division’s most recent stop at Circuit of the Americas.
- HendrickCars.com is the online home for everything Hendrick Automotive Group.Visitors can shop thousands of new or pre-owned vehicles, locate centers for service and collision repair, receive a value to sell or trade their car, chat online with customer service, discover career opportunities, learn more about vehicle protections programs, and explore how the company gives back to the community.
- Caruth started 16th and finished 25th in last season’s annual NCTS stop in Martinsville.
- In two previous NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Martinsville Speedway, Caruth has earned two top-15s, completed 525 of 525 laps and logged a 12th-place average finish.
- With his first career NCTS win and pole position earlier this season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Caruth became the third African American driver, alongside NASCAR Hall of Famer, Wendell Scott and current NASCAR Cup Series regular Bubba Wallace, to win a NASCAR National Touring Series race.
- Caruth is currently fifth in the NCTS championship point standings after five races. He has logged one pole, one win, two top-five and five top-15 finishes. He’s recorded a 10.0 average start, a 7.0 average finish and completed 100 percent of the laps contested this season.
You’ve raced at Martinsville three times in the past, one in the NCTS and twice in the Xfinity Series. How do you take these past starts and work toward bettering your previous finishes?
“I think in the Xfinity car, I’ve run, I think pretty well. I finished 12th twice. The truck race last year kind of was unknown, because we started in the rain. I definitely feel a lot better going into this weekend than I did last year, for sure, in terms of a confidence level in myself and my team and the quality of the equipment I’m driving. Moving forward, I think we have to keep up the things we’ve been doing right all year and the results will show.”
Martinsville can get heated on the track. How do you channel your competitive drive without getting caught up in incidents?
“I think I’m a pretty calm person, so I am not too worried about the track record at Martinsville. I’ve had run-ins in the past and I just try to compartmentalize things and go from situation to situation. I’m not too flashy or get too annoyed if anything happens.”
Spire Motorsports PR
