The speedway's origins lie in a grassroots community effort of the mid-1950s. Hall of Fame racing driver Ed Ortiz and fifteen friends — a group they called the Slowpoke Club — built the original Ransomville track in 1954 on property behind Ortiz's car dealership, initially motivated by a desire to give local drivers a safe place to race rather than on public roads. As interest and participation grew, the Slowpoke Club formed a corporation, sold shares of stock, and passed the hat at races to accumulate a down payment on new land outside of town. A local woman advanced the balance and held the mortgage. The speedway at its present location opened in 1958, with Geno Begolo winning the inaugural Modified championship that season.
The track changed hands in 1972 when Canadian Stan Friesen, the 1969 track champion, acquired the facility along with a partner. Friesen also owned the nearby Merrittville Speedway in Ontario, giving him oversight of venues on both sides of the border. The Friesen family retained ownership and operated Ransomville for 42 seasons — one of the longest single-family stewardships of any short track in North American racing history.
In December 2015, the Atwal family purchased the speedway. Parm Atwal's family had been active race sponsors at the track for years before the acquisition. Under Atwal ownership the facility received significant physical upgrades, including a new concession stand, souvenir stand, track office building, and a jumbo-tron scoreboard installed for the 2016 season. A new tech barn and concrete pit area pads were added in 2018, and millings were laid in the main parking area. Dave DiPietro Sr. was named general manager in 2024.
The weekly Friday night programme at the Big R fields five classes: Modified 358s, Sportsman, Novice Sportsman, Street Stocks, and Mini-stocks. The Modified 358s are the headline class, attracting the highest level of weekly competition. Go-kart racing runs every Thursday night through the summer months on the facility's infield kart track, known as the Little R.
The Hangover 150 Enduro on New Year's Day is a longstanding fixture at the track. The event comprises three 50-lap races for four-, six-, and eight-cylinder cars. In 2007, unseasonably warm weather of 46 degrees Fahrenheit on New Year's Day produced a standing-room-only crowd and a field of 244 entrants.
Ransomville has hosted multiple World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car Series events over the years. Shane Stewart won a WoO sprint car feature at the track in July 2017, Tim Shaffer won a second WoO event in October of that same year, David Gravel won in July 2018, and Aaron Reutzel won in July 2021. The All Star Circuit of Champions Sprint Car series has also visited, with Parker Price-Miller winning a feature in July 2022.
The 358 Modified class is the backbone of Ransomville competition, and its championship roll call reads as a who's who of Western New York and Canadian short-track racing. Alan Johnson and Pete Bicknell have dominated the historical record, with Johnson taking seven championships and Bicknell winning nine across a combined span of several decades. Danny Johnson is another multi-time champion in the class. More recently, Erick Rudolph claimed three consecutive championships from 2018 through 2021, before Mat Williamson took over as the division's dominant figure, winning the Modified championship in 2021 (shared with Rudolph), 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 — five successive titles that established him as the class's most recent dominant force.
The 1958 champion honours go to Geno Begolo, the first winner after the track opened at its present location, establishing a championship record that now stretches across more than six decades.
Ransomville Speedway represents the continuity of grassroots American short-track racing at its most durable. Built by a community of fifteen enthusiasts, passed through family ownership for four decades, and still producing championship-level Modified racing that draws national series visits, the track has served as the primary short-track racing venue for the Western New York and Southern Ontario border region for nearly seventy consecutive seasons.