Luca Văduva

Luca Antoniu Nicolae Văduva (born 22nd August 1970) is a Moldovan-born retired Italian racing driver.
== Early Years ==
Luca was born on the 22nd August 1970 to an upper class family in Bălți, the third largest city in the Moldavian SSR. His family had close ties to the Communist Party of Moldavia, with both his father Antoniu and his mother Ștefania being members of the Moldavian Supreme Soviet.
In 1976, when Luca was 6 years old, he and his entire family escaped to Greece under the guise of a diplomatic trip. From there, they moved to Genoa, Italy, where they still reside to this day. A manhunt was initiated by the Soviet authorities. However, no traces of them could be found and the manhunt was called off only a few months later.
== Racing Career ==
Văduva had held an interest in motorsport since a young age and went on to buy seats in several series across Europe in the mid 1990's. He had little success but secured a seat at the Newman Haas team in CART for 1999. He retired from his first two races in the series due to crashing out. His time in the series is most well-known for a high speed accident at the US 500 race at Michigan, where he collided with Stefan Van Damme head-on. Luca took over a year to recover from the injuries he sustained in the accident and made the decision to retire from racing and return to his life of farming after the severe accident. This resulted in his cattle farm growing exponentially under his direct management and it became one of the largest beef exporters in Moldova.
== Personal Life ==
Luca resides in Genoa, Italy with his wife, Lia De Palma. He speaks multiple languages fluently, including English, Romanian, Italian and Russian. He owns a cattle farm in his birth city of Bălți, Moldova, with his flagship cow being named after his good friend and former teammate Hüseyin Çetinkaya. 
His favourite driver and racing idol is the late Vadim Pshenichnikov. When asked about his odd choice in an interview, he replied that it is because the start of his fascination with racing came from watching him on TV as a child.
Category:Drivers
Category:CART
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Category:Italian
Category:IndyCar