Team puts women behind wheel
Stock car racing team Venturini Motorsports has had a tradition of employing women.
On June 29, the ARCA outfit made history by starting three female drivers in the same race for the first time in the modern era of the sport.
Natalie Decker, Leilani Munter and Toni Breidinger finished 12th, 18th and 20th respectively at Chicagoland Speedway. By starting as a trio, they helped raise the profile of women in a sport long dominated by men.
“We’re not trying to bill ourselves as this team that is championing female drivers by any means. It just so happens that we’ve had a number of females come through,” team spokesman Tom Venturini said. “We’re a championship calibre team. We’re putting the best drivers in the seat, male or female.” Team owner Bill Venturini won Automobile Racing Club of America titles in 1987 and 1991, the first coming with an all-female pit crew — known as the “Ultra Blue Crew” — led by his wife and team co-owner Cathy Venturini. “When that happened, the whole idea of it was, ‘We’re competitors first.’ It was not a publicity stunt,” Tom Venturini said. “We had the best physically fit women to do that job. They outperformed the men. It really just happened to be that they were women on the crew.” In subsequent years, the team has given seats to the likes of Milka Duno, Alli Owens, Johanna Long, Nicole Behar and others. Breanna O’Leary is a member of VMS’ pit crew this season as a tire changer. The latest woman hoping to prove she’s worthy of a top-tier ride with the help of VMS is 21-year-old Decker, a Wisconsin native in her first full season in ARCA. Father Chuck Decker was both a race car and snowmobile racer. Chuck took Natalie to a go-kart track when she was six, and it ignited a passion for racing. Decker won races in go-karts, late models, trucks and stock cars as a youngster. NASCAR pegged her for its Drive for Diversity program in 2015.
She raced a limited schedule in the ARCA series last season before landing a full-time ride for 2018.