“Shaggy,” aka Matt Ruf, raced his “Mystery Machine” IMCA sport mod at 22 ovals in nine states in 2020. Wherever he went, he drew a crowd with his car and golf cart reminiscent of the vehicle made famous by the Scooby-Doo cartoon.
One time, while en route to a race, Ruf pulled off the Interstate to get some beef jerky. His car, which gets hauled on an open trailer, attracted attention. A quick stop turned into a two-hour affair. Photo-op seekers jammed the jerky stand’s parking lot to get a photo of Ruf’s ride.
Ruf first introduced the Scooby-Doo motif in 2010.
“My nieces and nephews called me ‘Shaggy’ for years,” Ruf, of Grand Junction, Colorado, said. “I looked like him back in the day and I had a Great Dane named ‘Stella.’ So, I just went with it as a theme.”
He expanded on that theme with a Mystery Machine golf cart last winter.
“It’s a golf cart chassis fabricated to look like Shaggy’s van,” said Ruf, a greenhouse builder by trade. “It holds a set of tires, a jack, jack stands, and a few tools.”
Matt Ruf plans to begin his 2021 year with a trek to Cocopah Speedway in Somerton, Arizona. He has a new car from DeVilbiss Racing Chassis on order. It will once again carry the Mystery Machine colors.
“The interest people have in my [paint] scheme is good for racing,” Ruf said. “No matter where I stop [with my race car on the trailer] — whether it be a hardware store or for fast food — there seems to be people waiting for me when I come out. They want to know more about the car and where we race.
“At the racetrack, it’s the kids who see the car from the stands that want to see it up close in the pits. When they do, they usually tell their dads they want to race some day.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
