Rajah Caruth took the lead on the final restart of the night and fended off challenges from both Corey Heim and Layne Riggs to win the Rackley Roofing 200 at Nashville Superspeedway.
The win on Friday night (May 30) is Caruth's first in 2025, and the second of his career, snapping a winless drought that dated back to last year's spring race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Heim and Riggs finished second and third, respectively, and looked to be the only two drivers who could potentially win until pit road miscues cost them both the race to Caruth.
Those were some of Caruth's first words to FOX Sports 1 upon exiting his truck on the frontstretch. And he was right. The No. 71 Spire Motorsports pit crew put together a smooth and fast stop in between stages two and three to get Caruth off of pit road first.
Caruth's acquisition of the lead was aided by the fact that Heim slid through his pit box, while Riggs' crew had an issue changing his right front (the second time such an issue occurred for the No. 34 team).
Caruth sailed away on the restart, but wasn't able to shake Heim, and eventually Riggs joined the battle as well. Heim had several runs on Caruth throughout the final 50 laps, but Caruth successfully defended every time. Riggs and Heim began fighting for second with two laps to go, allowing Caruth to gain just enough of a cushion to hang on and win his second career race.
Caruth becomes the fifth different race winner of 2025, joining Heim, Chandler Smith, Tyler Ankrum and Daniel Hemric. Half of the playoff field has now been filled with winners, which means just five spots remain up for grabs via points.
Heim extends his regular season points lead over Smith to 122 points, exactly two perfect races' worth of points -- it's gonna take a monumental collapse by the No. 11 team to knock him out of the lead for the regular season title.
At the cut line, Caruth sits 10th (which in itself is a great comeback, as he was nearly outside the top 20 at one point). Since he's officially locked in with the win, the cut line moves to ninth-place Ty Majeski, who holds a solid 48-point lead over 11th-place rookie Gio Ruggiero.
Rookie of the Race: Welcome to the top of the rookie chart, Corey Day! The Hendrick Motorsports development driver has finally put together a race that proves his worth in the HMS pipeline. Which is huge, considering he's opened the season with some less-than-stellar runs in both the Truck Series and Xfinity Series. Day's fifth-place finish earns him this week's Rookie of the Race for the first time in his young career.
Riggs felt like he had the most dominant truck en route to a third-place finish:
Hemric (fourth) and Bayley Currey (ninth) talk about their strong runs at Nashville:
Day finally earns his first NASCAR top five in his first race of two on the weekend:
We spend so much time talking about the front-runners, but let's highlight a part-time driver who doesn't necessarily get the TV time to show off a good-looking paint scheme he brought to Music City.
Akinori Ogata, making just his second start of the season for his new self-owned team Akinori Performance, returned to the track in a beautiful; blue and black Toyota Tundra, with sponsorship from YKK AP. After qualifying 32nd and starting last in the field, the Yokohama, Japan native wheeled his No. 63 to a finish of 31st, after spinning with Jack Wood on the stage 2 restart.
For the first time in five seasons, we're headed back to the Irish Hills.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series returns to Michigan International Speedway for the first time since 2020 on June 7. Zane Smith was the winner of that race, but will not be able to defend his win thanks to his status as a Cup Series driver.
Coverage for the DQS Solutions & Staffing 200 Powered by Precision Vehicle Logistics begins at approximately noon ET on Saturday, June 7. Television coverage shifts from FOX Sports 1 to the big FOX network (check your local listings), while the all-new NASCAR Racing Network continues its exclusive season-long radio coverage of the Truck Series.