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Bill & Billy Venturini Interview
Bill & Billy Venturini Interview
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About this episode
Bill and Billy Venturini share their deep family legacy in ARCA and stock car racing, reflecting on over five decades of involvement. They discuss the evolution of driver development, their successful partnership with Toyota, and the challenges of modern racing costs. The Venturinis reveal personal stories, including Billy’s transition from driver to team owner and Bill’s retirement plans. They also touch on the changing culture of racing, the rise of young talents like Corey Heim, and the differences between East and West Coast racing scenes. Their passion for the sport and commitment to nurturing future drivers shines throughout.
Topics:
arca racing history
driver development
venturini motorsports
toyota partnership
racing family legacy
modern racing challenges
young driver preparation
east vs west coast racing
retirement and future plans
notable drivers
Kevin Harvick sits down with Bill and Billy Venturini for their first long-form conversation after Venturini Motorsports made its final ARCA Menards Series start in Las Vegas. The father-son duo reflects on the emotional final weekend at The Bullring, the legacy of their 43-year run in ARCA, and why they made the decision to sell the team to Nitro Motorsports. They also discuss working with young talent like Corey Heim, the future of driver development in ARCA, and what comes next for the Venturini family in racing.
LINK TO SUBMIT PICKS FOR TALLADEGA: https://forms.gle/Jw4H6P12RD4Qcjgd9
0:00 - Intro
0:28 - Bill & Billy Venturini Joins The Show!
2:57 - Origins Of Team
8:06 - Billy’s Driving Career
13:40 - Where ARCA Series Is Today
15:01 - Kissing In VL
19:07 - Best Driver
26:31 - West/East Coast Racing Cultures
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"The best car I had in the street car was a 68 Chevelle SS 396. And then I of course put a tunnel ram on ..."
- Intro
- Bill & Billy Venturini Joins The Show!
- Origins Of Team
- Billy’s Driving Career
- Where ARCA Series Is Today
- Kissing In VL
- Best Driver
- West/East Coast Racing Cultures
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Playing A was to be a race car driver.
I spotted my first cup race when I was 13.
I said, what do you think is going to happen?
He said, well, we'll be fine as long as we don't screw it up.
It wasn't that chicken.
He put us on the map in one day.
You know, I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
I do both.
The second one is not going to beぎ you get on Vox.
And today I have two legends of our sport,
Bill Vinterini and Billy Vinterini.
Thank you guys for taking the time.
And I think, um, you know, for our listeners,
we found that we have a lot of hardcore fans that are going to know
exactly who you guys are.
But legends in the Arcom winard series.
And now you've sold your teams.
I know, but still it's been a family affair for a number of years and I think for for you
this has to be a kind of a it's a very sentimental moment of everything that you've put into the
sport and to see the last races. How did that feel? Man, I thought it'd really be really
emotional, but I'm okay with it. It was time, you know, I've been doing it 52 years.
So, you know, I know kind of know nothing else in racing, but it was time for me to get
out. Back when Billy actually took over the team like 18 years ago, you know,
Oh my gosh, has it been that long?
It's been that long.
God, Lord, I didn't time twice.
And I never imagined or thought we'd be what we are today was never planned that way.
Now he had a vision and that was up to him to grow it. And that's kind of what
we agreed on. I said, you know, here, take the reins, kid, but you know, I'll support
you emotionally. But but you've got to do the rest. And he did it. I can't complain.
And I'm very proud, very, very proud of what what we've accomplished. You know, he put
us on the map. But I'm satisfied. I'm okay with it. I thought I'd be really, really
emotional, but it's time. I'm okay with it.
Do you have like a plan?
Wait a minute, what are you going to do with all your time?
I have a plan or does my wife Cathy have a plan?
Does your wife have a plan?
Yes, she definitely has a plan.
March, we're going to South America.
Oh, wow.
July, we're doing a Mississippi River cruise.
I think in October, we're going to Ireland.
And in between all of that, my bucket list was to drive out 66 from Chicago
to LA. I'm going to find time in between that schedule to do that.
Yeah. What are you going to drive it in?
I don't know yet.
I'm going to rent a car, fly to Chicago, rent a car, drive to LA.
I'm not going back. Not that two ways, one way.
I'm not going to drive it all the way back.
I don't know yet. I haven't decided.
Well, that'll be fun. And I think for, for you, I mean, obviously, you talk
about taking over the team 18 years ago.
And I got to imagine when you started it, you probably didn't, was this the vision?
I mean, because you guys kind of became the place to develop drivers
to send them off to the next level.
Is that what your plan was when you started, or did it evolve into that?
No, 100% that was the plan.
Okay. Like we, it wasn't our original idea, driver development, but we wanted to.
So if you're not going to be the first at it, you got to try to be the best at it.
And that was our goal was really, we kind of, little copycat from the other
teams kind of saw where their weaknesses were.
And kind of we're trying to make sure those were areas we addressed.
But we started as a one car, quickly grew to two car.
And within the first season, I think we ran three cars at a couple of races,
which funny story, the first time we run three cars, it was Kentucky.
Oh, eight. And dad pretty much threw the towel in on that one.
When I said we were going to bring three, he's like, I'm not going.
And I'm like, well, then watch it on TV and root for us.
But we're, we're going because I've signed three deals for Kentucky.
He came around quick, but it was, I mean, for us that struggled to get
one car on the track as a family run team to put three
within basically a year was seem like a tall order, but we somehow pulled it off.
So what is your racing history?
How did you wind up in racing?
My father raced from 1951 to 1959.
So, Sogersfield, O'Hara Stadium at the Chicago land area.
Freddie Lorenzen and Tiger Tompestoni and my dad.
And they, they raced in the circuit just around Chicago land.
Andy Granatelli was the promoter actually back then.
And he, I loved racing, growing up, seeing my dad did it.
But family rule was when I started to talk about racing, he said,
as long as you live in my house, you can't race.
And I said, why?
He says, well, because I know what it does to you, you know, it's kind of,
as you know, it's, it's, it's consuming and it's consuming.
And he, he knew that and he said, no, you can't race.
Well, I was a mechanic at his gas station.
And he gave me two weeks vacation for my honeymoon.
The first week we went to California because Disney World wasn't open yet.
That's how many years ago it was.
And the second week I came back and bought a race car.
And I've been racing since then, 52 years.
And you, did you, I mean, how much did, how much time did you spend
driving from, did you drive?
I started in 73 and I quit in 94.
Sounds about right.
Yeah, right around 94.
And why did you quit?
Why did I quit?
First of all, I accomplished what I wanted to do.
I ran some cup races.
I realized I couldn't afford to do that.
I ran some, back then it was Bush.
I ran some truck.
I ran Arca, which I loved.
But at the same time he was coming, coming in.
And we ran a couple of races together.
And I knew then it was time for me to step back and try to try to
keep all my resources so he could race.
So were you slower than him?
Is that why you quit?
Because I feel like I'm living that.
I feel like, I feel like I'm slower than, I feel like I'm
slower than Keelan already.
So I feel like that's, that's kind of the, the, the ride
out onto the sun.
We went to one racetrack and he smoked me bad.
Nice. That's when I told my wife, okay, 100% effort goes
to him.
You're, you know what's happening.
It's, I'm on the same path.
I'm on the same path, I'm on the same path.
You know, I wish we could, I wish I could have afforded to
keep him running to the quality of stuff that they're the
caliper that we're running today, but you know, it is
what it is.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that evolution.
So the driving piece of it for you, obviously that was how
you started.
That was the plan.
Plan A was to be a race car driver.
So when did you start working on the cars though?
My whole life.
Like actually I worked when he was driving.
So I actually, oh my gosh, I'm probably six, seven years old
was at least in the shop, like actually contributing a
little bit.
And by the time I was 10, absolutely was an active
member on the team.
I literally, I spotted my first cup race when I was 13.
13.
Really?
Yeah.
You spotted for me at 13 years old for a cup race.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
I spotted, I remember spotting cup races is like
when I, I mean races when I was like 11, but did my
first cup race just a few months after I turned 13 too.
Yeah.
My, how things have changed with, with the age.
And I remember going to the shop when I was three, four,
five years old and, and I would find every nut and bolt and
I'd find every hole in that car.
My dad worked on open comp cars and late models at Mason
Marin and in Bakersfield, California.
So, and I'll never forget the guy was a dentist.
His name was Dr.
David Hill and I would, his, we, the shop was in the alley
and I would lay on the creeper and I'd, I'd shove those
things in there and they take that thing to the track.
But I was, I was probably eight and rode in the right side of
the car around the racetrack and you were on the radios.
You were in the pits and, and doing all those things in
the race shop.
So you go from the race shop and you get in the car and,
and obviously it came to a point where it's like, okay,
I'm going to be better off selling rides and,
and working on the car.
When did that, when did that change for you from the
driving side?
So I run my, ran my first ARCA race in 94, but really didn't,
but we just kind of put it around because we didn't really
have much money all the way up until about 2000.
Then I ran full time in ARCA for 2000 through 04.
Okay.
05, we had a full deal actually got injured in 05.
And then didn't run much of the season there.
And then 06 was my final season.
I, we stopped in 07, but it was because of finances.
Like it was one of them.
It really did, he came in, he brought me in the office and was
like, we got a closed shop.
And mom, we didn't even know this, but mom, it maxed, it
maxed a home equity line that we didn't even know.
So we're actually, we're 150k in the whole, forget that we
didn't have money.
We're 150 negative.
So we're like, we're beyond broke.
We're under broke.
And, and I asked, well, how much payroll we got?
And it was the only hit myself and one other employee that
worked on the cars.
And dad's like three weeks.
I was like, okay.
And I had worked a side gig over at petty driving school, had
some friends that were there.
And one guy was spotting for an older gentleman that had a
race car and they, he was having someone maintain his
car and he wasn't real pleased with it.
So I was like, hey, but Tom wants someone else to take
care of his race car.
So our first development driver was a 63 year old
businessman from Wisconsin, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Yeah, and I'm birdie.
No kidding.
Yeah.
And to this day, I gave my championship speech and made him
the most key driver we had in the history of our
the, yeah, because he was the first one.
He's the one that set the model.
So, so I, I mean, I, what's the most cars you guys have
ever taken to the track at once?
Six, six.
And we've done that multiple occasions, but yeah, so.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's not, that's not with your
blessing.
No, no, no, no, I remember the first time we went to
Chicago with five cars, I thought, I thought the
world was going to collapse.
How are we going to do five cars?
And to him, it's like the norm.
And I'm like, you know, so panic when you, when you
take that many cars to the racetrack, obviously
you're building this depth of mechanics and
knowledge and pieces and all those things that
you guys became, it just became easy, not easy,
but it became easier for you guys to do because
you've been to the racetracks.
You've done all this.
Had, did it, did your vision always just stay with
ARCA or did you want to grow it?
Thought about growing it and we had a couple
little, we went into truck series for just a
little and it's fenty, but just small little
sample stuff.
Really, that was probably just as much Toyota
because Toyota was really big about, as Jack
Irving always said, bet your spot in the line
up.
And it's like, you're our ARCA guy.
You're a development guy.
If you go truck racing, we have a truck team.
We have an XFINITY team.
You're an ARCA guy.
You eat first all the time.
And that was, I was like, and with that, being
that we've been able to be that brand for them
financially just made way more sense than trying
because I think the ARCA model, if done correctly,
works better than the truck and XFINITY model.
So when did the Toyota relationship start and who pitched
that?
How did you wind up with that?
So actually, so it started with Gibbs.
So JD and I ran race legend cars together and he
let us run Mark Davis right at the beginning, 08.
So, or no, yeah, 07.
07.
So it was our very first half year that we were
running.
We ran Mark Davis right at the end of the year.
Joey's coming in 08 and Joey was like the Holy
Grail at that point of job development.
Yeah, sliced bread.
Yeah, there was.
That's right.
And so I went in and basically pitched them
and literally, I remember.
But you and JD?
Yeah, JD, but I did have to pitch them because he's like,
what do you have to do to be able to compete with?
And at the time, it was Eddie Sharp.
He's like, what do you have to do to be able to beat
Eddie Sharp at Rockingham?
Because he wanted us to take Joey down there.
I told him, all we need was an opportunity and we'll win.
Now, that was the most ludicrous statement I could
have made, but I had no, I mean, like we had nothing.
We're nothing to lose.
Right.
But we went down there and then we whooped them.
Like we whooped them in practice and qualifying and
we literally, we lapped all but one car at one point.
Like it was an ass kicking.
Yeah.
And it put us on the map in one day.
And since that day, and obviously you had the
conversations with Jack, when you dipped into the
truck and I would assume Xfinity at that particular
time, Bush series, whatever, whatever it was, those,
those were just, they just won off opportunities.
They just didn't feel right.
They both were where we had basically clients that
wanted to fund it.
Like, so it really wasn't us going.
I got you.
Putting us, really putting ourselves vulnerable.
Both of them were, they bought the cars.
They did stuff.
So we, we were, we were kind of fielding it.
It was almost a little more of a partnership on that one.
But when I got in there, I just, I knew we were so
much in our lane in order, like, like the tech
procedure and everything and the relationships.
Like you get to know that and that's where the
value of the team really was, was knowing how our
world worked.
Yeah.
And when we got over there, we were the new kid
on the block and the ARCA deal was working and we
weren't, so honestly, we just kind of stayed in our
lane and, and really made it.
It worked out.
Made it work.
So when, when you look at it this last weekend, I
mean, where do you feel like ARCA is with
where it was, you know, 10, 20 years ago compared
to where it is now?
What, what could be better?
Where do you think that everything is, is at
right now with, with ARCA racing?
When I was racing, first of all, the cost was
much less, you know, a working guy could work a
regular job on the, you know, full time and then
work, go racing on the weekends.
That's kind of what I did when I, when I first
started.
Today, it's not that way, you know, because the
cost is so much, so much more expensive.
They, they had a lot of big field and then
not just ARCA, but racing in general, which you
know, has gotten so expensive.
So it, it's made the fields much shorter.
But I got to say in the last three to four years,
now NASCAR took over ARCA, I think it was five
years ago.
2020.
Yeah.
Yeah, five years ago.
I was very skeptical.
I really was.
And, you know, I talked to Mike Helton about
it.
And I said, Hey, you know, he says, I said,
what do you think is going to happen?
He says, well, we'll be fine as long as we
don't screw it up.
And, and thank God, he's let Ron Drager kind
of run the program and he's, I think they're
on a good upward swing.
Let me put it that way.
Yeah.
So you've won all these races.
You've been a part of all these races and
you're kiss after the win.
How in the world did this kiss every driver
after the win start?
Where did that start?
Well, actually, it's different when you kiss
him.
Well, that's, well, that's what happened.
So, so originally, you know, and, you
know, Andy Granatelli, if everyone knows
your history, when Mario Andretti won the
Indiana plus 500, Andy kissed Mario.
Okay.
Well, my dad drove in the Chicago land area
and Andy Granatelli was the promoter.
So they were kind of friends.
So I kind of, oh, that's pretty cool.
You know, being an Italian, and you can
test this bill again, my grandfather, you
had to kiss him every day.
And he said, don't ever be ashamed to
kiss another man, you know, and show him
respect.
That sounded a little bad, but yeah,
yeah, but you get the idea, you know,
okay.
So along comes Billy.
He wins his first race.
Dad, of course, runs up and kisses his son.
Yeah.
Well, someone says, oh, is that the
integrandatelli kiss?
Oh, gosh.
So that actually the media started it.
And then I just kind of kept it going.
It became a little bit of a rite of passage,
I believe.
Yeah.
I think the driver is dreaded and wanted it
both.
Like it's, but we have some pictures that
are priceless that we'll never show,
but it's terrible.
Like you could see the fear, there's the
look of fear in some of these driver's faces.
Yeah.
But Jesse Love loved to be kissed by me.
Let me tell you that.
Jesse embraced it.
Jesse embraced it.
He went in.
He was good.
That's actually the best, the best way to
go about it.
You have to lean into it.
If you try to, you try to shy away,
it gets way worse.
So you mentioned Jesse Love and
you've seen it through multiple generations.
And aside from Billy, who, what,
what was your favorite win as,
as a car owner?
You can't pick anything that Billy did,
though that doesn't count outside of Billy.
Oh, man.
Well, my favorite win was Texas
World Speedway, 1991.
I like, I like the fact that he throws
out all the old school.
Well, you know, that's, that's,
I know, I love it.
That's his wheelhouse.
Yeah, you know, that's, that was
my, my biggest win was that.
And, yeah, setting the track record
at Talladega and Daytona, which
still holds today.
Those are the, those two things
is the most, I'm the most proud of,
for me, my accomplishments as a,
as a team, as an owner, as
venturing motorsports.
I have to, I have to give him
the credit, man, you know,
Rockingham put us on the map,
winning Daytona five years in a row.
You know, that, that meant, man,
I never won Daytona, you know?
Yeah.
I wish I could have, you know?
Yeah.
But to win Daytona the first time
and then also to do a five in a row.
How many have we won?
Seven?
Seven.
Seven, you know, that.
Pocono was a terrible track for me
as a driver, and then he comes along
and we win Pocono, I don't know
how many times, you know?
Joey Logano and I think, uh,
Brennan's won there.
Christian's won there.
Yeah, so, yeah.
I don't know, you know?
Yeah.
You're trying to get me
going out of memory late.
And, you know, I'm 72.
Believe me, I forget a lot.
Him and my wife have to remind me,
I'll say something, it'll be wrong.
And they'll say, no, wait a minute,
Dad, that wasn't that race.
That was this year.
And this is who was driving for us.
I said, OK.
The stories always get better with time.
Yeah, the fish get a little bigger.
We have more time.
How old are you, Billy?
49.
OK, well, we're the same age.
I was saying, I think we're about same age.
I'll be 50 in December, so.
Yeah, you got me by a few months.
Yeah, so we're the same age.
So your stories are better than ours.
But ours will get better with time.
Oh, they always get better with time.
That's right.
There's a, but there's a,
I'm actually, we're writing a book right now.
And there'll be a lot of stuff that
will be in the book that Billy gave me the OKs.
I said, I said, Billy, they're going to do a book on me.
He says, OK.
I says, can I really tell it like it is?
And he says, Dad, go for it.
Yeah.
OK, so there's some true things in there that,
you know, I usually haven't told anyone,
but it'll be interesting.
When you want your spring break to feel like
and your kid's pool day to feel like
and your hotel bed to feel like
and room service to feel like
because at Hilton hospitality feels like
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When you look back at your time
with the ARCA program,
who do you think the best driver
that's come through there is?
Oh, that's tough.
That's going to put a bunch on.
And you've asked me that question one other interview.
And at the time, I told you Willie B.
Really? Yeah.
I don't know if you remember that,
but you asked me, it was you and Yocum
were asking me on a radio show once.
I said, Willie B, man, there's so many.
You've been through a lot since then.
But since I'll tell you what, man,
there's there's been some hand.
I can't if I do that, I'm going to get
like 20 text messages, pissed off drivers.
Let me let me ask you this as you've as you've gone through
as you let's just, I mean,
you watched Willie B come through there.
Mm-hmm.
How has the driver changed since then?
A lot.
The amount of research that the drivers do off track now.
Yeah. Is insane.
Yes. Like so.
And I think the very best one
for how he preps using Sim
and and everything else is Corey Heim
that Corey is the best Sim driver I've ever seen.
I'll go that far.
He is.
So and it translates because he is super special.
Yeah. And I think when I look at Corey,
I mean, that's, that's lines up with everything
that I've watched just from the outside looking in.
I mean, for God's sakes, he wrote his,
he had a PowerPoint presentation
for his girlfriend the other day
when she was going to Kansas.
I heard that and I'm like, what in the world?
And I think that's what,
that's what the driver has developed into
and we talk about that on our show all the time.
You've got the Joey Logano and the Denny Hamlin.
Now, Ryan Blaney is doing pretty good.
William Byron is doing pretty good,
but they'll never catch up to the experience side of things
that those two guys have.
And there are just those,
there are those key guys that can go to a test
and turn their season around.
There are guys that just go to a test to test,
but there are guys that can go to the test
and communicate with their team
at the simulator in today's world,
at the racetrack in today's world
and be able to dissect the car
to be able to put it in a path that's better
than what it was.
And there's just, there's just,
there's guys like Corey Heim that are special.
I'm glad you said that because I feel like
he's pigeonholed into the truck series right now.
He's just out there destroying them
because he's so much better than him.
But he, if you put him in at Daytona of next year
in the cup car, he's going to be competitive
and he's going to figure it out pretty quick.
I believe he'd win a cup race as a rookie.
That's how strong I think he is.
He's unique.
My wife called him the robot.
When he put his helmet on, totally different person.
The minute that helmet went on, he's just, yeah.
He's ice cold.
Yeah, ice cold, ice cold.
Ice cold.
And I think that that's how you have to be
in today's world because there's,
with the social media and the pressure
at such a young age.
I mean, I was 25 when I won my first cup race.
Like typically, I mean, Josh Berry's kind of not been there
and, you know, Butterbean's coming through a little bit later.
There's some of these guys that are starting
to get opportunities that are a little bit older
than what they had been.
But 1920, you better be pretty close to ready to go.
Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I think it's, and it's kind of a lot of pressure.
I mean, that's, I mean, these kids are-
The brain's not even developed yet.
That's it.
Think about how dumb I was when I was 19.
I can't even imagine.
You're echoing what I say all the time.
I'm like, I feel bad for the kids actually.
Because everyone always thinks drivers haven't made,
but I'm like, that's a lot of pressure
because I was a complete idiot at 20 years old.
Oh my God.
And so you have to remember, so are they.
So you just got to keep them from making those big mistakes.
Because you look back at 30 to think how you were at 20
or like, I'm just glad I got through today.
Yeah, right?
It is extremely difficult.
And I think that when you look at the development
of these kids, it's much different than it used to be.
And, you know, I feel like,
I feel like ARCA is almost misaligned
with the ages that they have to start now
compared to where the rest of the racing world has went.
I almost feel like it's almost too old.
You feel like ARCA's too old?
That's what I'm gonna ask you.
15?
Yeah, I think that, I think that, I mean,
when you look at, I think it's misaligned a little bit.
I look at the late model stocks, you know,
like the pro late models, you can do at 12.
Now they move the legend car back to 10.
The go-karts and banditler or banditler's
and everything start at seven.
And I feel like our sport, I feel like on the short tracks
almost needs to be a year earlier.
I don't think that the super speedways
needs to be changed.
That for you has to be pretty eye-opening
because of the fact that,
and I've kind of lived it through the kids now
with the, you know, the Brink Cruises and Zilliches
and Keelan and seeing what they've been able to do.
How old is Keelan?
Keelan's 13.
And, but like when I look at Conor Zillich,
when I first saw him in a go-kart,
and I look at Brink Cruises,
when I first saw him in a go-kart,
they're not, there's a lot of those,
there's not a lot of them,
but there are a lot of those kids
that are on that path to have raced,
you know, they'll go 40 weekends a year
and race sometimes four times a weekend
in the carting stuff.
And they're just so much more prepared
than what they would do.
I didn't start racing until I was 20.
I couldn't even go in the pits
until I was 16 and 18 in some of those places.
So you started at 20?
Yeah.
And, you know, so it's culture shock for you
from the way that you look at the kids today.
When I first time, Bill, we went to test somewhere
and I don't know where we were,
we were testing at one of the tracks
here in North Carolina.
And I come in a little later
and the father's standing there.
Well, I'm thinking the father's the guy
that's going to test our car.
So here's-
So whoever was it, I'm done, I think who it was.
We've had some youngsters.
Yeah, this kid was like 13 years old.
And I looked at my wife and I said,
we're putting a 13-year-old kid in our race car
and we're going to trust them.
You know.
What year was this?
Oh, not too long ago.
We had, I know we had Justin Haley
when he was 14.
We tested him at 14.
We tested Chandler Smith at 14.
Christian Neckis at 14.
Like, I mean, you know, David,
or Todd Gillan, he won his first race with-
Luke Fenhouse.
No, Fenhouse.
Oh, I know what it was.
It wasn't Fenhouse,
but it was that Toyota test we did
and we did have a third.
It was Brent.
Brent's cruise.
No, it was Brent.
And I had to think about it.
It was Brent.
And you know how big Brent is?
Okay.
It was 13.
It was, I had to think about it.
It was Brent.
That's who it was.
We used to do a combine test
every other year for Toyota.
And Brent, the first time we rolled them in there,
he was 13 and we did like eight drivers.
He was second fastest driver at 13.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, I think that,
you know, Brent and Zillich and,
you know, the way that those two kids,
I mean, they were in the same tent
that Keelan was when we raced carts.
And they stood out so far above the other two kids.
And just because of the fact that they could just,
they could do things that nobody else could do.
And, you know, I think that there,
there's definitely an ability there
that not a lot of, a lot of kids have.
So when you look at the future,
you're going on vacation.
What are you going to do?
Staying with Nitro for at least one year.
That was actually,
it was part of the whole deal
of the whole contract.
Nitro Motorsports.
Yeah, stay on Nitro Motorsports.
I had to, I'm on the contract for 13 months.
Nick's already trying to talk me into staying longer.
But when you and I talked about it before a little bit
was we're going to do some West Coast racing too.
And that's something a little bit near and dear
to my heart.
So if that's the case,
maybe I can be talked to stay a little longer.
I enjoy that a lot.
Yeah, well, explain that.
We talked a little bit about it,
but I think it'd be good for the fans to hear
just the difference in cultures from West Coast
to East Coast.
Because the thing for me that stands out
on the East Coast is there's so many people
that are doing it for a living.
West Coast, there are people that are doing it,
but it's just,
there's still some of that love of the game,
love of the sport feel to it.
I don't know how you would explain it,
but for me, that is how it feels.
So we went out in 2023 with Sean Hingarani
and we were fortunate enough to win the championship with him.
But I remember telling my guys
after we were there in the first race,
I was like, we got to blend.
Like this is a different culture.
And I was like, don't push East Coast racing
on these guys because we don't want to,
we don't suck the fun out of this
because as much as we all love what we do on the East Coast
and that's the main focus of racing
is it happens over here in the Carolinas,
the 704 is where you race.
That's right.
But the West Coast has just a really cool chill atmosphere.
They compete hard as hell,
but they have a little bit different attitude
about how they go about it.
And I thought, I loved it.
And I've enjoyed being out there.
Yeah.
Well, it's obviously something that I have a passion for
with being from the West Coast
and being able to race out there,
come to the East Coast in the same kind of timeframe
as Hornaday and everything that Corelli did
on the West Coast and be able to still race with those guys.
But I was told people that when Ron got to race
where it felt like I was repaying somebody
for letting me have a career
because he kind of taught me the ropes
of how the East Coast worked and the differences
and who you needed to talk to
and how things were going to go.
And it's just, I feel this deep connection
to getting West Coast racing from the grassroots level,
whether it be super late models, pro late models
or at the local level, back to what it used to be.
And I think we've got a good path as far as that goes.
So it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out
over the last couple of years.
So I got a couple of easy questions now that.
They've all been easy.
Yeah, I know.
But this is probably a little bit off the wall,
but what was your first car that you drove on the street?
64 Pontiac Bonneville four door.
Really?
Did you wreck it?
Sell it?
Sold it, I sold it.
And then I bought a 66 Ford Galaxy 500 427 four speed.
Yeah.
Fastest car you ever drove?
No, no.
What is the fastest car you ever drove?
Besides those Daytona cars on the street?
On the street?
Yeah.
Did you ever drag it?
His car?
His car?
You aren't that flashy.
Is that what you're saying?
He had the flashy car?
No, I mean, what do you got right now?
I didn't finally get a cool car.
My kids turned, when they turned over 16,
I was like, I don't have to cart them around.
I'm getting something fun to drive.
I'd kill myself in his car.
Oh my gosh.
Some of the street cars.
The best car I had in the street car
was a 68 Chevelle SS 396.
And then I of course put a tunnel ram on it
and dual quads and headers and...
Did you ever street race it?
Yeah, a little.
A little bit?
Not much though, very little.
Yeah.
How about yours?
My current car, I finally, like I said...
No, your first car.
1987 Pontiac Trans Am.
But I had the small motor and...
Did you buy it?
I did.
Bought it from my cousin.
Really?
Yeah, so at that point it was about seven years old,
I think.
Yeah.
I love that thing.
You guys have had a great run at it.
I know you're gonna keep going.
Yes.
But you've had a great, great run at everything...
I can't complain, I've been very blessed.
Well, everything that you've done for this sport,
I think that no matter what level it is at,
the commitment that your family has had for this sport
is great for all of us in laying the foundation
to what this sport is all about.
And when you look at NASCAR racing,
ARCA racing, stock car racing in general,
it's a family sport.
It's built off of people that have a passion for it
and you guys have had a great passion for it.
So thank you for everything
that you guys have done for racing.
You're on the same path.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're exactly right.
It's not getting any cheaper either.
Thank you guys.
Thank you very much.
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