TRUCKS: Stage 4 Cancer Survivor Exits Debut Early; Team Owner Fills In

AJ Waller (pictured), a survivor of a Stage 4 Hodkins Lymphoma diagnosis, had to exit Friday night's NASCAR Truck Series race at Martinsville early. Waller's team owner Josh Reaume finished the race in relief. | Danny Hansen, NKP for Ford Performance

In April 2020 AJ Waller was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Waller, a budding race car driver, had to put his aspirations of chasing trophies on hold for a regimen of intensive chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

After battling the disease courageously, Waller rang the bell signifying he was in remission from cancer in January 2022. Since beating the disease, Waller has been fighting his way through the local short track scene in Florida in order to give himself a chance to live out his dream of becoming a NASCAR National Series driver.

Waller got that opportunity on Friday night as he made his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut in the Boys and Girls Club of the Blue Ridge 200 at Martinsville Speedway driving for the Reaume Brothers Racing team.

But his debut didn't go as he had hoped, as the driver couldn't make it to the end of the race. Waller had to exit the cockpit of the No. 22 Reaume Brothers Racing Ford F-150 in the early laps of the race as he began to feel sick behind the wheel.

"I just got too hot, me personally, got too hot," Waller explained to Racing America On SI following the race.

Waller continued, "It really sucks, but I just have to keep moving forward."

As Waller, 21, was pulled from the race, Reaume Brothers Racing team owner Josh Reaume, who was serving as the crew chief for Cody Dennison and the No. 2 Reaume truck, was called into action by his team.

Josh Reaume is now behind the wheel of the no. 22 pic.twitter.com/FltJcufHya

— Reaume Brothers Racing (@RBR_Teams) March 29, 2025

Reaume, 34, had previously competed in three races this season but didn't expect to compete on Friday night at Martinsville.

After salvaging a 31st-place finish in the 35-truck field for Waller and the No. 22 team, Reaume was quite sympathetic about how Waller's series debut ended as Reaume found himself in a similar situation in a 2019 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

In that race, Reaume was fighting food poisoning, and the heat within the cockpit of the truck made the situation unbearable. Reaume would exit the truck that night.

"Yeah, it really sucks for AJ, and I hope he's alright. I was asking on the radio, they said he was feeling better," Reaume said. "And I'll be the first guy to say I got out of a race car at Charlotte a couple of years ago, I couldn't do it. TV does it no justice in terms of how hot it is in the race car. It's a conditioning thing. I don't think if I hadn't run a couple of races this year that I would have had the ability to do this. It's just hot."

Interestingly, this isn't the first time Reaume has been called into action during a race weekend to finish an event that another driver started for his race team.

At Dover Motor Speedway in 2019, Reaume took over for Daniel Sasnett following practice for the race. Reaume would take the reins from Bobby Kennedy mid-race at the Daytona International Speedway Road Course in 2020, he'd do the same for Jesse Iwuji at Kansas Speedway in 2021, Thad Moffitt at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 2022, Armani Williams at Kansas Speedway in 2022, and Frankie Muniz at Kansas in 2024.

Reaume feels like there are other instances of him stepping in for other drivers in the NASCAR Xfinity Series ranks for the MBM Motorsports team, but he can't recall the specific details of those instances.

Ironically, Reaume says he and his team were recently talking about him playing "Superman" by coming in mid-race and finishing events for the organization.

"We actually joked about it at the shop I think this week or last. We call it the Superman, it's happened a couple of times," Reaume explained. "I guess a bit of a unique situation where the team owner jumps in to keep it up in the points and what have you. It's definitely pretty wild, right? I was calling the race [as crew chief] for Cody [Dennison] and they came over and got me and said, 'Hey, you need to go get your stuff on.' You know, what I have to say is it's a testament to this race team and the depth that we have that I can jump off the box and Cody can still have a well-executed race."

The most difficult thing about jumping in and finishing a race that you didn't expect to compete in, according to Reaume, is that you don't eat the same or prepare the same physically during weeks where you aren't scheduled to get behind the wheel.

"It's just hard, right, I was chowing down on barbeque and buffalo wings, and not really hydrating or anticipating to get out here and run," Reaume quipped. "I don't know what we did, 130 laps or something, but definitely, you're a step behind when your first laps are under green."

While the end result wasn't ideal, Reaume says he was impressed with the ability that Waller was able to show before the heat forced him from the truck on Friday night.

"I thought he was doing a good job," Reaume said of the young racer. "The guys were happy with how he was doing in practice. It's a change coming from a Super Late Model to this stuff. These cars are really heavy, they don't turn as good. A Super Late Model feels like a fighter jet compared to these. Our team has had so many young drivers debut with us. He had all the same natural observations of driving this bigger heavier car, and he was overcoming kind of the differences and how he needed to adapt his driving style. Honestly, I felt good with how he was going to perform, just unfortunate about how all it ended up."

Reaume is hopeful to have Waller behind the wheel of his trucks for additional starts, but says that the team will have a conversation with Waller and his family to ensure that the driver's health and safety are the top priority before heading into his next race.

"Obviously, we're going to have a conversation with them to see where they're at. I think number one is obviously health and safety. We want to make sure AJ is put in a healthy situation and put in a position to succeed and give him all the tools he needs," Reaume said.

Among the tools that Waller could utilize going forward is a cool suit, a special shirt that drivers run underneath their firesuit, which has cold water pumping through it to lower a driver's overall body temperature inside the cockpit of race cars, where temperatures can reach more than 140-degrees.

Waller feels the cool suit would make a world of difference. The Late Model racer had his helmet fitted with an air-blower on Friday night, but all that device does is simply blow the air that comes in from a duct, which is attached to the side windows of the race truck, into the driver's helmet. Sure, it provides some relief, but it is a long way away from the air conditioning that people experience in their passenger cars.

The driver, who hails from Florida hopes to return to the Reaume Brothers Racing team for the upcoming event at North Wilkesboro Speedway on May 17. Waller says he will decide on whether or not he will make additional starts based on how that race goes.

But regardless of how Friday night's race ended up for Waller, the fact that he was able to make his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut just a little over three years after battling back from a Stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma diagnosis was a win in its own right.

The driver hopes that he has inspired others going through similar health battles.

"Just don't let anything stop you. Keep doing what you want, and keep doing what you love," Waller said.