{"id":294087,"date":"2025-10-11T07:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/294087\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T07:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:32:09","slug":"what-an-incredible-legacy-joey-logano-looks-back-on-fond-memories-with-venturini-motorsports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/294087\/","title":{"rendered":"“What An Incredible Legacy”: Joey Logano Looks Back on Fond Memories With Venturini Motorsports"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Bill and Cathy Venturini\u2014owners and founders of ARCA Menards Series legend Venturini Motorsports\u2014prepare for retirement, many of their former drivers are wishing them congratulations as well as thanking them for giving those same drivers a break early in their racing careers. Among those is Joey Logano. Before he became a three-time NASCAR Cup champion, part of Logano\u2019s early career was spent racing in the ARCA Series for Venturini Motorsports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was obviously very early in my career, and I was learning pretty much everything I could about stock cars,\u201d Logano said<\/a>. \u201cI remember the first test we had in Daytona, and we weren\u2019t very fast and were changing everything we could. When we went down for the race, we were pretty strong. I think we finished second or third or something like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cool to think about the test and how off we were and how we were able to overcome that and be strong there. Then you built that relationship because we had gone through some adversity, even though it was only one week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then [in the next race] at Rockingham, we destroyed them. We were just a couple laps away from lapping the whole field, which was really cool. And then Pocono was a strong run as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venturini Motorsports fielded several future NASCAR stars<\/p>\n

Venturini Motorsports was a training ground for several of today\u2019s well-known racers, including Logano<\/a>, William Byron, Alex Bowman, Christopher Bell, Corey Heim, and Jesse Love.<\/p>\n

Having started as a two-person operation\u2014Bill and Cathy\u2014in their native Chicago in 1982, the Venturini\u2019s were happy giving countless young drivers a break, primarily in ARCA. The couple not only served as surrogate parents, but also as great teachers and cheerleaders, imparting their years of knowledge to their young charges to make them better racers and better people on and off the racetrack.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fun just getting to know the family, obviously they\u2019re really close,\u201d Logano said. \u201cTalking to Billy [their son] and Big Bill, there was always a lot of passion, the thing I noticed most about them, very passionate people, very emotional, which I can relate to because I\u2019m fairly similar in those ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Logano will never forget \u201cThe Kiss\u201d from Bill<\/p>\n

Logano broke into a big smile\u2014and a blush on his still baby face\u2014recalling one of the most humorous memories he had about his time with the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funniest thing I remember most was the kiss from Big Bill in victory lane. I\u2019m not a real kissy kind of guy, so I was like \u2018Ahhhh!!\u2019\u201d Logano laughed. \u201cIt was always fun going to the shop because they were always trying to look for the next thing, working on their cars, working on what was next.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was kind of an entrepreneurial attitude, starting with their own cars and then growing other cars to where it almost looked like half the field were Venturini cars. And they also ran well; they did it right the whole time, all their cars were fast. Their mindset was they always looked for more. There\u2019s not a whole lot of people like that in the world. That\u2019s why they were successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, Friday\u2019s Star Nursey 150 at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway marked the final chapter of Venturini Motorsports\u2019 43-year legacy. The team has been sold and will be rebranded to become Nitro Motorsports, which begins operation on October 16, with new owner Nick Tucker.<\/p>\n

Logano took to the ARCA X (formerly Twitter) page to extend his best wishes to the retiring couple and give them a meaningful sendoff. \u201cHey, Bill and Cathy, congratulations, what an incredible career, what an incredible business you built, and what an incredible legacy you built in the motorsports industry,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope you guys enjoy your retirement and have fun for a change, just have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Bill and Cathy Venturini\u2014owners and founders of ARCA Menards Series legend Venturini Motorsports\u2014prepare for retirement, many of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":294088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[35119,52254,135277,150427,150428,16413,20721,150429,9650,1406,62,67,132,68,66169,22880],"class_list":{"0":"post-294087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-alex-bowman","9":"tag-arca-menards-series","10":"tag-arca-series","11":"tag-bill-venturini","12":"tag-cathy-venturini","13":"tag-christopher-bell","14":"tag-corey-heim","15":"tag-jessie-love","16":"tag-joey-logano","17":"tag-nascar","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-venturini-motorsports","23":"tag-william-byron"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115354373184791844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}