06/07/2026
Friday 6/5/26 Recap
Story and feature winner pictures from last night. Thanks as always!
Mavrick Ruh edges Jake Richards for Grand Nationals feature win at Gravity Park
CHILTON, Wis. (June 5) – The year’s first appearance of the Dirt Devil Grand National Series brought out some of the best feature racing of the season at Gravity Park Speedway, starring Mavrick Ruh and Jake Richards.
Ruh beat out Richards and just beat out the rain to win the Grand Nationals feature Friday night at the 1/3-mile clay oval. Rubicon’s Marcus Hoeppner (Stock Cars) and Mark Hoeppner (Midwest LS Late Models) and Jacob Rens of Brandon (Sport Mods) also added feature wins before heavy rains wiped out the final three features of the night in the A-Mods, Street Stocks and Sport 4’s classes, with the A-Mods feature getting in just one lap before the rains came.
Both feature winners already this season at Gravity Park, Ruh and Richards put on a show over the final 10 laps of their 20-lap feature event. With Ruh running the outside and Richards hugging the inside of the track, the two ran side-by-side for almost the entirety of the second half of the race, as well as with several quick lead changes over that stretch.
Ruh started on the outside of the front row and jumped out to the lead on the first lap, and the Elkhart Lake native built up a solid margin before a pair of caution flags for spins in the back of the field.
While Ruh held the lead, Richards was slicing through the field from his ninth starting spot. He was fifth on a lap 6 restart and two laps later was lurking behind a side-by-side battle for second between Jeff Muehlbauer of Elkhart Lake and Plymouth’s Derek Kaat when Muehlbauer slipped high in turn four, allowing Richards to drive between the two cars, getting by Muehlbauer immediately and then inside Kaat for second on lap 9.
Richards then looked inside of Ruh on lap 10, and the two were even at the start-finish line at the end of lap 11. Ruh held a slim lead in the side-by-side joust until Richards got a strong bite on the inside off of turn four and led lap 16.
Ruh came right back, though, leading laps 17 and 18, and then got a big run on the backstretch on lap 19 to get in the clear. Richards made one more charge on the final lap coming to the checkers, but Ruh held on to win by little more than half a car length for his second feature win this season.
Kaat finished third with Brad Weiss of Cascade fourth and Chilton’s Marshall Plate fifth. The race was the first of six races over three different tracks this season for the Dirt Devil Grand National Series, but Ruh is not eligible for the series points, which gave the top finishing position for the series purposes to Richards with Kaat second.
Plate, Muehlbauer and Nate Ruh of Chilton all won heat races. The first heat included an incident when the car of Jack Wiroll of Sheboygan caught the outside wall, going up on two wheels before coming back down, only to go straight head on into the turn one tires in front of the outside wall. Wiroll was injured but his night was over.
Rens made his first appearance at Gravity Park this year pay off with the win in the 20-lap Sport Mods main.
Rens took the lead from Sheboygan’s Brian Konitzer on lap 9, staying low out of the fourth turn as Konitzer drifted high. Rens cleared Konitzer two laps later and then pulled away on two late restarts for his first career feature win in the class at the track.
Eric Craine of Allenton came in second after also making his first showing at the track this year. Tom Schneider of Chilton was third with Konitzer fourth and Brad Buckman of Kiel fifth. Schneider and Travis Schmidt of Cascade both won heat races, and Schmidt had moved from a seventh starting spot to third in the feature before contact with Konitzer while racing for second ended his race.
Marcus Hoeppner won his second Stock Cars division feature of the season at Gravity Park, leading all 20 laps of the feature from the pole.
Hoeppner held the front while Matthew Rechek of Beaver Dam and Montello’s Tyler Schrimpf raced for second over the final 10 laps, swapping positions back and forth several times before Rechek cleared Schrimpf on lap 12. Rechek held on for second with Schrimpf third, three-time feature winner Brad Lubach of Kiel fourth and Mike Klenz of West Bend fifth. Lubach and Tim Mueller of Chilton were heat winners.
Mark Hoeppner won the Midwest LS Late Models feature, besting Renee Hoeppner of Rubicon. Mark Hoeppner also won the class’s heat race.
Joe Huenefeld of Freeport, Ill., won the A-Mods heat race, while Slinger’s Roman Blank and Phillip Wuesthoff of Beaver Dam both won Street Stock heat races. Clint Hattermann of Bear Creek edged Chilton’s James Reese to win the Sport 4’s 4-cylinders heat, a race that on lap 2 saw the car of Robbie Holst of Beaver Dam roll three times at the end of the frontstretch after contact with another car. Holst was uninjured.
Gravity Park is off for racing next Friday, with racing returning Friday, June 19 with another full schedule including the second appearance this season by the Midwest Legends Dirt Series. Grand Nationals, A-Mods, Sport Mods, Midwest LS Late Models, Stock Cars, Street Stocks and Sport 4’s also will be on hand. Spectator gates open at 5 p.m. and racing starts at 7 p.m.
FULL RACE RESULTS at https://www.myracepass.com/events/639426/races
