Break it down by lap, and Ryan Beltz had a fantastic payday. He competed in a three-lap, four-car Dash for Cash that paid $1,445 to win in honor of longtime Grandview Speedway publicist and announcer Ernie Saxton. That’s roughly $482 a lap.
Saxton died on August 17 at the age of 83. He started at the Pennsylvania dirt oval in 1967 and worked there until his retirement in 2021. Saxton used to announce the Cash Dash events, which have not been held for years. When the track announced the return of the Cash Dash in honor of him, Manmiller Electric contributed first with $300. Others soon followed.
“The prize just snowballed,” Beltz, of Barto, Pennsylvania, said. “Fans in the stands just poured money into the purse because they loved Ernie. I had no idea how much the three-lap race was worth when I went out there to race.”
The Cash Dash pitted the four heat race winners, Beltz, Ron Haring Jr., Matt Yoder, and Justin Grim. Beltz earned the Cash Dash win, which would come helpful to offset the cost of repairs to his car after he wrecked his 2019 Bicknell. His team consists primarily of himself and his father, Mike.
“We are a low-budget team,” Beltz said. “We race at Grandview Speedway not only because it has the toughest competition, but it is close to home, which keep traveling expenses down.
“I spent a couple thousand dollars to get back on the track. Winning this race sure will help us recover from those expenses.”
Ryan Beltz has raced Grandview Speedway since 1995. In 30 years of racing, he’s earned five sportsman wins and one modified win in the Thunder on the Hill series.
“I never won that much money for that little racing,” Beltz said. “My previous biggest paycheck was Thunder on the Hill, which paid $2,000 the night I won it.”
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.
