All Entries Tagged With: "Paul Newman"
Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG MotorBooks
HAD Steve McQueen lived long enough, perhaps he, and not Paul Newman, would be Hollywood’s face to race car driving. They were both hardened race car fanatics and both enjoyed racing victories off-screen. Or perhaps they would both have been Hollywood’s greatest race car rivals. Who knows?
Not that Mr. Newman donned the Hollywood mantle with any outward hint of pride, mind, it was, nonetheless, his entrée into the automotive world.
Here in the Constitution State, Mr. Newman always enjoyed a bit of lore that seemed more intimate than the blue eyed spectacle that world vaguely knew.
A resident of Westport, he was “our neighbor”; living what seemed like an ordinary, if privileged life. A patron of the Westport Country Playhouse. A Volvo dealer. A dutiful philanthropist; helping his daughter forge profits into charity via Newman’s Own.
However, behind this disarmingly low key façade was a deeply, fiercely competitive man. In Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman, authors Matt Stone and Preston Lerner retell the stories from colleagues and rivals who knew Mr. Newman in the pits, on the track, and from the stands.
What is most striking in their well researched account is how readily the racing community accepted an actor. Following his leading role in the 1968 drama Winning, a story about an amateur who dreams of winning the Indianapolis 500, Mr. Newman set off headlong into racing which seemed at first to be reality imitating art.
Sometime rival racer Sam Posey brings insight to the story:
“One way to look at is that [Newman] acted his way into being a racing driver. He used his powers of concentration and his image of himself succeeding, and he played it like a role. Or maybe he was just a guy who was able to build on each lap incrementally [...] He’s often been quoted as saying that [racing] was the only thing that gave him a sense of physical grace. I can really identify with that[.]“
What’s clear is that no matter how Mr. Newman was able to glean victories in the IMSA and Trans-Am series or establish himself as a racing authority (as he did in playing part of the 2008 effort to reignite Indy fans), Paul Newman won his way into the folklore of automotive racing by his own skill.
A year after his death, his legacy is the respect of his peers in what is a hugely egocentric arena.
Mario Andretti caps the tributes to Hollywood’s leading race car driver: “What I saw in him was the wisdom of someone in love with life. A man who stayed with his dream [...] how lucky I felt to walk pit lane with him.”
Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman by Matt Stone and Preston Lerner. Published by MotorBooks. Retails for $30 / $37.50 CDN.
Lime Rock’s Own: Paul Newman
PLN at LRP in the 70s.
IMG by Hartford Courant
By Gunnar Heinrich
CONNECTICUT is a remarkable place in which to live.
This the third smallest, yet fifth oldest state in the union is a verdant swath of forested hills and shoreline is home to many of America’s treasures. That may have channeled too much Board of Commerce, but it’s true, nonetheless.
Paul Newman was one of those assets that was hidden away in this low key exurb of New York. And Lime Rock Park, a small, twisting bit of asphalt nestled in an undulating valley carved by glaciers is lucky to have had Mr. Newman as both patron and friend.
Mr. Newman of Hollywood fame – Cool Hand Luke, Hud, Hudsucker Proxy, The Hustler- passed on this weekend and did so leaving behind a raceway grateful for his memory.
The actor-racer-philanthropist’s understated demeanor that telegraphed so well onscreen translated off camera for many who observed him.
His racing successes and passion for the sport turned him into something of a man’s man legend in the automotive world. Lime Rock, his home track in many ways, was the beneficiary of Mr. Newman’s passion.
“His unassuming manner meant that Lime Rock Park guests never knew if they might bump into him at the track, getting ready to strap into his GT-1 Corvette and taking the checkered flag on an SCCA race weekend or maybe just rumbling through the paddock in a deceptively fast Volvo station wagon,” The Lime Rock press release said.
“Lime Rock Park mourns the loss of a racer, a humanitarian, a gentleman and a true hero. He will be missed by all. Thank you, PLN.”
Interesting bit: Paul Newman was a Volvo enthusiast and having owned a dealership in Milford, Connecticut called (appropriately enough) Newman’s Own Volvo, Mr. Newman would take would-be (and doubtless star struck) buyers on test drives from time to time.
In 2004, Mr. Newman acted as Celebrity Judge for the Swedish automaker’s For-Life Awards honoring hometown heros.
Paul Newman, part of the Constitution State’s cool roster, added more than a bit of magic to the growing legend that is now Lime Rock Park.
Lime Rock’s Own will be missed.
