Sportsman driver Ryan Graver didn’t get the opportunity to celebrate with his family when he first won on dirt in 2023. At the time much of his family was with his grandfather, Kevin Sr., who was gravely ill. Last Saturday, however, his family, including his father, Kevin Jr., was there at the site of his second win on dirt at Grandview Speedway as the racing tradition of the family’s patriarch lives on.
The Graver family is best known for its pavement racing exploits. They compete at their hometown’s Mahoning Valley Speedway, and that once included Ryan.
“I started racing at Mahoning in a Pinto when I was 12,” Graver said. “Then, in 2020, during the pandemic, Grandview’s crate class caught my eye. I liked the idea that on dirt racers can move around the racetrack. I went to Grandview and was fascinated when I saw Brett Kressley bouncing off the wall. You don’t see that in asphalt racing, where there is a lot of bump and run — something I did not want to do.”
Graver wasn’t the first from his family to venture to the dirt side. In fact, his late grandfather, Kevin Sr., fielded cars at Grandview Speedway back in the day.
Kevin Sr. passed away in 2023. Graver has struggled since his first win in that same year. This season he upgraded from a 2020 Bicknell chassis to a 2024. However, it didn’t mean instant success right out of the box. Luck, unfortunately, doesn’t come with a chassis.
“We just had bad luck earlier this year that kept us out of the competition,” said Graver. “A broken gas pedal, a melted U-joint, broken torque arms, being pushed into wrecks, flat tires — all stupid little things that added up. The most we got was five or six laps in the feature until last weekend.”
Going the distance Ryan Graver reached victory lane. It was his first win since his grandfather’s death.
“My grandfather was my main help — his passing was a very big loss,” said Graver. “My whole family was there to see [Saturday’s] win. They couldn’t be there for my win in 2023 because grandpa was in the hospital. It was emotional that he was not with us in victory lane, but he lives on in what he taught me early in my career.”
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.
