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Ralph Cusack has a distinctively unusual
set of credentials New England auto racing community. He was a very
successful driver and he followed up that career by being a highly
admired track owner and promoter.
Cusack is a 12-time track
champion, winning the crown over the course of four decades,
beginning in 1953. Cusak won three championships in the 1950’s, four
each in the ‘60’s and 70’s, and took down his final track
championship in 1980.
The following year, 1981, saw
Ralph purchase the Beech Ridge Motor Speedway. During the winter of
1985-86, Cusack reconstructed and repaved the Maine oval.
Cusack is a charter member of the
Beech Ridge Hall of Fame, and is a winner of the Beech Ridge
Memorial Blazer Award, in 1971. Other honors he’s earned through his
association with auto racing include the Outstanding Weekly Short
Track Operations award, presented by Racing Promotion Monthly in
1989, and the Outstanding Contributions to Short Track Racing award,
given by the American-Canadian Tour. In 1992, he was nominated as
the Upper East Region Promoter of the Year, and was a nominee for
National Promoter of the Year, again by Racing Promotion Monthly.
Ralph was given the Beech Ridge Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.
That same year, the Northeast Motorsports Expo named him the
Northeast Motorsports Promoter of the Year.
Cusack secured a NASCAR sanction
for Beech Ridge in September of 1994, and NASCAR presented him with
their Administrative Award of Excellence the following year, in
1995. |
