The name Liguori is quite familiar to longtime fans of short-track, open-wheel racing.
In fact, it has been associated with American automobile racing for more than eight decades. Ralph Liguori began a successful racing career in 1949 and his grandson Joe Liguori continues to successfully carry the torch.
Known as “Ralphie the Racer,” the elder Liguori drove anything he could get his hands on. Born in New York City on Oct. 10, 1926, Liguori purchased a Ford coupe from a junkyard for $25 in 1949. With the help of his brother Frank, they converted it into a race car with the intent of running at nearby tracks on Long Island.
After his first night racing the new car, Liguori had made his $25 back. It was then he decided he could make a decent living driving a race car.
A chance meeting with Bill France in 1950 convinced Liguori he should move to North Carolina and compete with France’s NASCAR stock car series. He relocated to Fayetteville, N.C., to pursue his dream of being a race car driver.
From 1951-’56, Liguori competed in 76 NASCAR events with 30 top-10 finishes.
During the late 1950s, Liguori discovered sprint cars and took a liking to them. They better suited his budget and driving style. After a 50-mile USAC Eastern sprint car win at Langhorne (Pa.) Speedway in 1957, he was hooked on the open-wheel machines.
The family moved to Tampa, Fla., in 1957 so Ralph Liguori could escape cold weather and race year-round. Ralph and wife Jane returned to the Midwest each spring to compete during the summer months.
Like most open-wheel racers of his era, competing in the Indianapolis 500 was Liguori’s dream. Sadly, he never got to experience an Indianapolis 500 start. In 10 attempts, Ralph Liguori never cracked the starting field.
“I’ve got to admit it does bother me that I’m known as the guy who never made Indianapolis,” Liguori once told reporter Robin Miller. “I wanted to make that race so bad but it never happened so I kinda got stuck with the label as a loser.”
Regardless of how Liguori viewed himself, he was a crowd favorite. His raw talent and determination didn’t go unnoticed by fans. Many times, driving cars far less than the talent he processed, he excelled with what he had.
Perhaps his finest moment occurred during the 1970 Hoosier Hundred at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Liguori passed A.J. Foyt for second place with three laps to go and set sail for eventual winner Al Unser. It was evident that day just how popular Liguori was.
The pass of Foyt resulted in a roar from the massive crowd. Although he didn’t win that day, he received a bigger ovation than Unser at the end of the race.
Liguori won his final feature in 1992 during a USAC Regional Midget Series event at the Indianapolis Speedrome. He was 65 years old and became the oldest driver to win a USAC feature event. He also collected three USAC National Sprint Car Series wins between 1967-’70. Liguori died on July 22, 2020, at the age of 93.
All four of Ralph Liguori’s children ended up competing in motorsports at some point, albeit on two wheels. Nick, Mike, Frank, and Ralph Jr. went motocross racing without their father’s blessing.
Frank, the third oldest of four boys, explained that his father didn’t want his children racing.
“Dad really didn’t want us racing because it was so dangerous. But we did anyway,” said Frank Liguori, who competed in motocross events from 1970-’75. “At first, he didn’t really come to my races. But eventually he came around and went to a few.”
The final time Ralph Liguori strapped into a race car occurred during a midget event at Columbus (Ohio) Motor Speedway in 2000.
“My mother says he qualified for the race and came back to the pits,” Frank Liguori recalled. “As he was sitting in the car, he glanced over at the trailer of a better-funded team next to him, and all the stuff in it. He looked up at a crew member and said, ‘I have no reason to do this. I’m done,’ and just got out of the car. That was the end.
“Of all the things that my father did during his racing career, probably the thing that stood out to him the most, and what he was mort proud of, was probably winning that first sprint car race at Langhorne and beating guys like Jimmy Bryan. He talked a lot about that race.”
The following season, Ralph Liguori put his 14-year-old grandson, Joe, in the family midget for events at the Indianapolis Speedrome.
“I started driving a midget for grandpa in 2001,” Joe Liguori said recently. “You had to be emancipated to compete if you weren’t 16. The Speedrome was really the only place we were able to run. Billy Wease was also 14, so we kinda started our careers together at the age of 14.”
Joe Liguori shows many of the same traits that identified his grandpa. He is a versatile driver who will drive anything he can get his hands on. To date, he has raced midgets, sprint cars, Silver Crown cars, late models, open-wheel modifieds, modified mini stocks, mini sprints, karts, and even a school bus figure-8 machine.
Although he may be as versatile, he claims his driving style is far different than that of his late grandfather.
“I’d say my driving style is totally different from that of my grandfather’s. Grandpa was fearless,” Liguori said. “I’m confident. He would go out there and drive the balls off it every lap no matter the outcome. I drive the car to my comfort level and if I feel that’s as hard as I can go, that’s as far as I will go.”
Just like his grandfather, Joe Liguori has won races in multiple classes of cars and is the real deal. He competes regularly with the Must See Racing Sprint Series and picked up his first MSR triumph at South Carolina’s Anderson Motor Speedway in May. He also led the series points chase for a short time.
At 35 years old, Joe Liguori feels he’s just getting started.
“I think there’s more to come. I think you never peak out in your career until you’re too damn old to do it,” Liguori said.
The Liguori name has been involved in motorsports for eight decades, and Ralph Liguori’s grandson, Joe, is proudly continuing the family tradition.