Billy Venturini
(Photo: Barry Cantrell/ARCA Racing)

Billy Venturini ready for bucket-list race at Flat Rock Speedway: ‘This isn’t for anyone else besides myself’

www.arcaracing.com May 19, 2023

Billy Venturini had no desire to get back in a race car.

The son of two-time ARCA Menards Series champion Bill Venturini, the 47-year-old last competed in an ARCA platform event in 2007.

Since then, he’s overseen a Venturini Motorsports program that has won countless races with drivers like Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, Erik Jones, Harrison Burton, Chandler Smith, Todd Gilliland, Corey Heim and Christian Eckes, among others.

However, when it was announced that Michigan’s Flat Rock Speedway would be part of the 2023 ARCA Menards Series East schedule, Venturini jumped at the opportunity to race at the quarter-mile asphalt oval.

RELATED: Entry list for the Dutch Boy 150 at Flat Rock

“It really was 100 percent about the venue and had nothing to do with wanting to be a race car driver again,” Venturini said. “I think when I got done with my career, the one thing I really missed out on was I never got to run a race at Flat Rock because they took it off the [ARCA] schedule right when I started running the series full-time.

“It just barely missed me, too. Right when I started, the year before was the last year they raced there. It just didn’t work out where I could ever run a race there, and I regretted it.”

What makes Flat Rock so special to Venturini? You have to go back to June 18, 1983 to get your answer.

On that day, his father won his first ARCA Menards Series race at Flat Rock. It was the first of three ARCA victories the elder Venturini earned at the track in the span of a little more than a year.

So when word reached Venturini that ARCA president Ron Drager was considering including Flat Rock Speedway on the 2023 ARCA Menards Series East schedule, he quickly made his intentions clear.

RELATED: Watch Saturday’s Dutch Boy 150 at 7:30 p.m. ET on FloRacing

“When Drager was talking about putting it back on the schedule, I don’t know how serious he thought I was, but I told him I’m going to run that race. If you schedule that race, I’m going to run it,” Venturini said. “I think he checked in with me about five or six times last year to check my level of seriousness on it.

“This was something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m doing it. If this was any other track, and it doesn’t matter to me, it could be any other race track in this whole damn world, there is nowhere else that would get me out of retirement then this one place.”

Venturini shook the rust off with a test session at Little Rock, the 0.526-mile oval located on the grounds of North Carolina’s Rockingham Speedway, earlier this week. Current NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver and former Venturini Motorsports driver Christian Eckes went with him to help get him up to speed.

Venturini isn’t going into Saturday’s race expecting to win. Realistically, he knows winning is probably out of the question.

His only goal for Saturday’s race is to have as much fun as possible while crossing Flat Rock Speedway off his bucket list. A strong finish in the Dutch Boy 150 would be a bonus for all involved.

“I play golf, and sometimes I’ll go a period without playing, maybe five or six months,” Venturini said. “Every time I go out after not playing for a while I just remind myself, ‘Just hit the (heck) out of the ball and have fun.’ I always play well when I do that. Now the second or third time I go out and all of a sudden I’m worried about the score and I’m trying to do things right and I’m thinking about everything in my swing and I don’t usually play as well as I did that first time.

“I’m kind of taking that approach with that race. Just go out, run around the race track, enjoy myself. I’m not going to try to prove anything. If I end up x amount of laps down or whatever it is, so be it. This isn’t for anyone else besides myself to go say I ran a race at Flat Rock.

“Actually, here is my one goal. I hope when I get done with this race, I’m glad I ran it.”