Ralph Sanchez

Rafael Sanchez was born in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba in 1948.

He spent his early years there and attended Catholic school until his life was disrupted by the Cuban Revolution.

He was secretly recruited as a schoolboy at the age of ten to distribute the flyers and some supplies to counter-Castro opposition forces.

Though seemingly low-level, this work was highly dangerous as children who were caught by the Castro police were often jailed as political prisoners.

Sanchez would say that the environment of the time made children grow up quick.

When a relative warned his father that he was in danger, his family quickly arranged for Rafael to be sent alone to the United States as part of the Operation Peter Pan airlifts from Havana to Miami at the age of thirteen.

While in Miami, Sanchez initially lived with an aunt and uncle.

However, the couple then moved to Nicaragua and Sanchez would live in a Catholic orphanage until he turned 18.

The rest of his family in Cuba (his parents, brother and grandmother) were able to join him in Miami in the late 1960s.

After initially working in fastfood to support his large relocated family, Sanchez first attended Miami Dade Community College and then earned accounting and business administration degrees from Florida Atlantic University in 1969, after which he started his real estate career with the Keyes Company.

After two years he began to take loans to develop small housing projects.

By the time he was in his 30s, Sanchez had already become wealthy from land development and developed an intense interest in motorracing, including doing some racing himself.

Through the 1980s and early '90s Sanchez built the Grand Prix of Miami into a formidable force on the international motor-racing circuit, drawing the largest competitors in the industry at the time, including Mario Andretti, A. J. Foyt, Brian Redman, Doc Bundy, Bob Wollek, Geoff Brabham, and Juan Manuel Fangio II.

Shortly after launching the downtown Miami circuit, he also helped organize the circuit in Tamiami Park would draw further big-ticket names and winners such as Al Unser, his son Al Unser Jr.., Bobby Rahal, Michael Andretti, and Danny Sullivan.

Three years after his infamous first Miami Grand Prix, Sanchez then launched an even more ambitious plan to build a $100 million racetrack in South Florida, the Homestead Motorsports Complex (now known as the Homestead-Miami Speedway).

By 1983, Sanchez was a known autoracing promoter and determined that Latin American immigrants in South Florida would respond well to the sport and that there would be a market there for international sports car racing there.

Though he secured commitments and support from professional drivers, Sanchez faced steep resistance from Miami city officials.

Sanchez forged ahead and finally received permission to organize the Grand Prix of Miami, which would bring high-profile Porsches, Jaguars and Corvettes racing along Downtown Miami public streets such as Biscayne Boulevard decades before they became the prominent business district real estate that they are today.

That first 1983 race, however, proved to be disastrous.

Plagued by severe weather, only 50 miles of the planned 310-mile-race could be completed, cutting the total time of the race from three hours to thirty minutes.

Sanchez committed to pay the full extent of the prize, which furthered his credibility in the industry despite the event.

In all, the venture had cost him $1.3 million.

Sanchez remained dedicated to the idea and in the second Miami Grand Prix, Sanchez gave two-time Formula One world champion Emerson Fittipaldi, who had retired more than three years earlier, a drive in his "Spirit of Miami" March-Chevrolet 83G in February 1984 and within months secured his return to racing in CART with Patrick Racing.

After the 1990s, Sanchez focused his efforts into developing more conventional projects, specializing in mixed-use.

He became particularly active and highly respected in the city of Coral Gables, Florida as a managing partner for Ponce Circle Developers, which he launched in partnership with the Mas family of MasTec.

The track was one of the largest projects to take place in Homestead, which was made more significant by its timing – Sanchez ground broke in 1993 as the city was struggling to recover as the epicenter the previous year's historic Hurricane Andrew.

The racetrack provided a needed economic catalyst to the area.

The project took nine years to complete from conceptualization to opening, though construction only took two years.

All of the 63,000 seats to its first NASCAR race at sold out days in advance.

The completed track opened in November 1995 showcasing unprecedented design features for an autoracing track, including tropical pastel colors, tiled restrooms, and palm trees lining the backstretch.

Future track president Al Garcia stated "Ralph wanted to incorporate the Miami culture and lifestyle into the track. That's why he chose to paint the walls of the track gay greenstone. At the time, nearly every track had red and white walls, but again, Ralph wanted something more symbolic of Miami so he decided to go with a pastel color. Combined with the palm trees, these created a particularly nice visual on television and really showcased the beauty of South Florida."

It became quickly noticed and within a year of opening its story was covered by Sports Illustrated in a profile of Sanchez published in 1996.

The track was soon hosting several major sports car events, including IndyCar races.

The track's high-profile events and races become closely associated with several top drivers, including Emerson Fittipaldi and Bobby Rahal, who both praised it.

In 2002 he developed two major properties in Coral Gables.

Rafael Agustin Sánchez (1948 – April 1, 2013), better known as Ralph Sanchez, was a prominent Cuban-American autoracing figure, developer, and businessman.

By 2013, it would host over 280 events a year, including concerts and NASCAR's November season closing that features a weekend of intensive races that can determine as many as three champions.

The Homestead-Miami Speedway would cement Sanchez's status as a leading South Florida developer.

Following its nationwide runaway success, he next planned to follow it up with a similar racetrack on the Island of Aruba.

While he managed to secure crucial government aid and flew journalists in to cover its announcement, a change in government led to the project's dissolution.