The Scoop
PRESTON RUH – CHINESE & LINGUISTICS STUDENT & 410 SPRINT CAR RACER
Posted on: Thursday March 23, 2023
Preston Ruh and his girlfriend Madeline Schultz pose next to the IRA outlaw sprint car Preston plans on campaigning in 2023.
You’d be hard pressed to find any correlation between a Linguistics and Chinese major and someone who wheels a 410-winged, outlaw sprint car.
However, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin’s Preston Ruh oddly enough fits the bill here. The 20-year-old, who’s been involved behind the wheel in motorsports in some capacity since he was five years old, plans an all-out campaign for rookie-of-the-year honors in the Bumper to Bumper IRA Outlaw sprint car series in 2023. It’s a tour that hosts races on dirt ovals across the Midwest.
What’s more Ruh, who comes from a well-known racing family in the Eastern Wisconsin racing circles, attends the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he is indeed studying Linguistics and Chinese. His goals upon graduation are to either land a job as a Chinese translator or push on towards graduate school.
20-year-old Preston Ruh has been racing since he was five years old. (Gem Photography)
At any rate Ruh’s story provides many unique twists and turns not often seen in the local or regional dirt track ranks.
“My dad Keith Ruh did race for a bit the 1990’s,” Ruh recalled. “There are a bunch of our family members who’ve raced. Tom Ruh. Brad Ruh is my uncle. Kevin Ruh. Racing has always been in my blood and in my family’s blood for many, many years now. It’s often what we talk about when we get together for family functions.”
Preston climbed behind the wheel for the first time at the age of five. “I remember dad put me in a kiddie kart at Road America,” Ruh explained. “I don’t remember the first two seasons all that well. But I do remember that I started getting some wins in the second and third seasons of me racing there.”
Ruh’s first track championship was earned at the age of seven. “I really enjoyed (racing) right from the get-go,” Ruh said. “We eventually moved up into the different karting divisions they had at Road America on their kart track.”
In total Ruh spent nine years battling in the karting ranks, the final season of karting taking place in 2016. “I was 13 years old then,” Ruh said. “From there we raced a 600 Micro sprint at Plymouth on the dirt.”
For Ruh it was a true learning curve getting seat time on a dirt track where the surface changes often as the race night progresses. “Plymouth is where I really learned the true physics of racing on a dirt track,” Ruh explained. “On pavement you really don’t set the car into a corner per se whereas on dirt you do.”
One thing Ruh quickly discovered was that running a 600 micro on dirt required much more regular, weekly maintenance than he experienced in his karting days. “With the karts it was mainly just some basic cleanup, but the 600 micros took a lot more of our time,” Ruh said. “We’d spend usually 10 to 20 hours a week cleaning up everything, especially the chains. We’d remove the chain off as soon as we got off the track and soak it in oil. We’d hang it up to dry and mount it back on at the last-minute right before we left. Overall, we thought it would save on some wear and tear of the chain itself.”
The last season the 600’s ran at Plymouth Dirt Track was 2018. Ruh took the plunge and moved up into the Midwest Sprint Association (MSA) 360 sprint cars the following season. The move up was an eye opener for the teenage racer. “I think the biggest adjustment was the wide variety of adjustments you could make to the car compared to what I dealt with in the past,” Ruh admitted. “We had very limited stuff to change on the kart and the micro sprint. With a 360-sprint car there were so many things you can do on them. At times it was very overwhelming.”
Overwhelming to the point that often Ruh would make too many changes and “overthink” things at times. “I can honestly say with the 360-sprint car anyways I never did truly get comfortable inside that car,” Ruh confessed.
It was in that 2019 season that Ruh experienced a wild wreck at Plymouth. “It was a bad one and we were forced to basically limp along the rest of the year with almost all of our spare parts bolted on to the car,” Ruh explained.
When the 2020 season arrived Ruh and his team decided to spread their collective wings a bit and chase the MSA’s traveling schedule. “We ran the entire MSA schedule, and we got to some new tracks for the first time,” Ruh pointed out. “We got to the big half-mile at Dodge County in Beaver Dam, and Angell Park in Sun Prairie.”
Preston Ruh at speed. (Victory Imagery Media Group photo)
A track that quickly became a favorite of Ruh’s was the tight, quarter-mile bullring Gravity Park USA in Chilton. “It is still one of my favorite tracks with its banking and it’s a real elbows up track.”
Despite the traveling and venturing out to different tracks, Ruh said the team continued to struggle on the road, often behind the proverbial eight ball trying to figure out the best setup for each oval they raced at. “We only won two B mains in the 360s and that was tough for me having won a lot in the 600s,” Ruh admitted. “It was tough on my confidence. I mean I was racing against a guy like Kurt Davis who has been racing twice as long as I’ve been alive. I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well.”
In 2021 Ruh, still with his 360 sprinter, elected to run some shows with the “Big Dogs” of the more powerful, 410 outlaw sprint cars of the Interstate Racing Association (IRA). The following year Ruh ran with a true 410 IRA sprinter. “The first night I did that was at Outagamie Speedway in Seymour,” Ruh recalled. “We had an unfortunate accident in the pits. A car flipped on the track. A tire flew and landed inside of our but trailer and hit two of our crew members.”
The pit crew members fortunately were not seriously hurt but Ruh admittedly was shaken up a bit from the incident.
The sprint car owned by Preston and Madeline is decked out with more than two dozen sponsors.
Ruh eventually made the switch to the 410’s, running with the IRA series but not running too many races whereas he would have potentially jeopardized his rookie-of-the-year eligibility. “The first night with our own 410 was down at Angell Park,” Ruh said. “We qualified 13th or 14th out of close to 30 cars. I guess you could say I was pleasantly surprised with our pace.”
Ruh scored a ninth-place finish in the A main running with the IRA at Plymouth. “We struggled all along to get any top ten finishes and we finally were able to nail a top 10 with the IRA at what we consider our home track,” Ruh exclaimed. “I’ve got to attribute a lot of it to our new car chief we picked up last year Chris Clark. He’s been great.”
For Ruh, Clark has also acted sort of as a ‘personal trainer’ of sorts to prepare him for the rigors of horsing a near 900 horsepower winged machine around a dirt oval. “He’s been helping me with my own gym plan. The workouts include a lot of cardio work for my endurance as well as some upper body lifts, too. My first few nights running with the IRA my shoulders would get really tired.”
Ruh has run few enough IRA shows where he remains a candidate to compete for the 2023 rookie-of-the-year campaign.
“The IRA has a fantastic rookie program with a cash prize and a Maxim chassis as well,” Ruh said. “I’m really looking forward to the North Dakota swing on our schedule this year – especially River City Speedway. I watched a lot of videos from that track, and it looks like a blast along with I-55 (Pevely, MO).”
A trio of shows Ruh has showcased on the ’23 IRA calendar are some co-sanctioned events with the All-Star Circuit of Champions. Those shows are at Wilmot Raceway May 13, Dodge County Fairgrounds in Beaver Dam Friday, June 2 for the Gib Wiser Classic and the following night at Plymouth for a $26,000 payday Saturday, July 3. Ruh has run a couple of nights at “Big Beaver” in a 360 but not in the 410.
The car and motor Ruh use are owned by Ruh and his girlfriend Madeline Schultz. It’s been paid for with the sponsorship money the pair have acquired during the past three seasons. And those in the know realize that fielding a 410-sprint car can be one of the most expensive machines in dirt track racing. “Our goal this year is to have only sponsorship money pay for everything,” Ruh explained. “We’ve had some fantastic sponsors come on board and support us.”
Not bad for a pair of young college students who admittedly don’t have much of their own money at all. “We only have one engine, and we got a really sweet deal on it,” said Ruh. “We only paid $15,000 for it and once we had it rebuilt the value of it is closer to $40,000. My dad does own the trailer we use and most of the stuff in the trailer he owns, too.”
Like many open wheeled teams in the Sheboygan area, Ruh’s team recently hosted a highly successful brat fry-fundraiser at the local Pizza Ranch. Supporters came from as far as Illinois to help support Ruh’s racing effort.
The team members who support Ruh’s racing operation include his dad Keith who serves as crew chief and his mom Angela. The rest of the supporting cast includes Madeline, Madeline’s brother Micah Schultz, Jarret Parrish, Steve Kornetzke, Brady Portschy and Gracie Cleveland.
Ruh’s team of marketing partners for the 2023 season includes Professional Plating Services Inc., Peterson’s Welding & Machine Company, Flyrite LLC, Xtreme Trucking LLC, Oostburg Family Dentistry, Bob and Kristin Gehm, Schneider Family, SC Diecast & Collectibles LLC, Lake Home Retreats, Klink Equipment, Courtyard Landscape Services, DeTroye Electric, HobbyTown, Shape of You, Spike’s Barbershop, A Main Apparel, Pizza Ranch, Petrie Fabrication, Buege High Performance, Smokey’s Speedshop, Chatty Madi Racing News, Mama Tried Motorcycle Show, King Racing Products, Crow Safety Gear and GoPro.