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 1950s, four each in the ‘60s and 70s, 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. |
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