LEBANON, Tenn. — In the closing laps of Friday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Nashville Superspeedway, Rajah Caruth had a question for himself.
“How bad do you want it?” Caruth thought silently, as four-time winner Corey Heim and Layne Riggs pursued him relentlessly over the final circuits.
Caruth answered his own question by driving flawlessly over the final 15 laps of the Rackley Roofing 200, crossing the finish line 0.518 seconds ahead of Heim in second and 0.629 seconds ahead of Riggs in third.
The victory was Caruth’s first at Nashville, his first of the season and second of his career, which vaulted him into the Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs.
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After Heim won the second stage — his ninth stage win of the season — a quick pit stop under caution during the stage break gave Caruth the lead on Lap 100, and he held it the rest of the way to claim the coveted guitar trophy that goes to Nashville race winners.
Driving the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, Caruth led twice for 61 of 150 laps, including the last 51.
“I didn’t expect that at all — those guys were breathing down my neck the whole run,” Caruth said of Heim and Riggs. “My pit crew won that race. They won the race for us, got us off pit road twice.
“We’ve been off this year, but it was good to get it done tonight. That was a lot of fun. I asked myself, ‘How bad do you want it?’ I just tried my best, and we had clean air. Their stuff was better, but I just did my best. That was it.”
Heim agreed that losing the lead on the final pit stop was critical.
“With the third stage being so straightforward — lack of strategy, going green there — it was tough to come back from not having the lead. But I slid through my (pit) box during the last stop and didn’t do my guys any favors… just something to reflect on my end.
“But huge 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.”
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Riggs, who won the first stage, got to Heim’s bumper twice in the battle for second but couldn’t claim the runner-up spot.
“I’ll tell you, I had the best seat in the house there at the end of that race,” said Riggs, who fell from second to eighth off pit road during the second stage break because of trouble removing his right front tire. “They were doing some racing right there in front of me.
“I hoped to be right there in the mix. I just didn’t have enough time.”
Daniel Hemric came home fourth, followed by Corey Day, a dirt-track phenom who posted his first top five in his tenth career start in Truck Series competition.
Heim widened his series lead to 122 points over second-place Hemric entering next Saturday’s DQS Solutions & Staffing 250 at Michigan International Speedway on June 7 (Noon ET, FOX, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NOTE: Post-race inspection was completed without issue in the Craftsman Truck Series garage, confirming Rajah Caruth as the winner.