Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman Page #4

I was a paid race driver.

Not only did he get me a job,

he got me in one

of the best teams...

If not the best team...

In the championship,

competing against him.

In my first year,

I won 5 out of 11 races,

and I was rookie of the year.

And then in '85,

I won damn near all of them.

Emerson Fittipaldi...

A.J. Foyt, Willy T. Ribbs

staring into history.

For me and my career,

Newman was, without question,

one of the most important

people of them all.

Ribbs made history,

becoming the first black driver

to tour the circuit.

If it wasn't for him,

I would've never

been a professional.

I would've never been in

Indycar and in the Indy 500.

It was...

He was very private man.

So the last thing

you would ever think

that he's a practical joker.

What are your plans for next year?

Well, I'm doing some

porno flicks out in new Mexico.

You know, I need a nurse.

A nurse?

Hey, Sal, come on in here.

You need to be a nurse.

He called me one day, and he said,

"this is David Stern

from the National Enquirer.

We've been informed

that you been bunging iguanas

on a Denver street corner."

I said, "well, iguanas

don't get that far north.

They end in Arizona.

They're not getting up into Colorado.

It's too cold."

And he started laughing.

He said, "you busted me, kid."

I had this hat that I really liked.

Paul didn't think

it was worthy of me, I guess.

You know, we had some shotguns,

and somebody grabbed the hat

and threw it up in the air.

Paul went bam, bam, bam.

And, of course, my hat was riddled

with little, tiny holes all over.

I got a picture from him,

and I'm to the side of him,

looking like he said

something shocking.

He signed it, "actually,

the truth is, I'm Willy's dad!"

We had this relationship where

we'd play jokes on each other.

And so, I'm thinking,

"I've heard enough about cars."

You know, the guy can't stop.

So I went to a towing service.

I said, "can you

find me a crushed car?"

And they just happened to

find a crushed Porsche.

And I said, "okay, would you

wrap it in wrapping paper

and put a ribbon around it

and deliver it to Paul

Newman's back porch?"

They did, and I called them.

I said, "you do that?"

and he said, "yeah, I did."

I said, "anybody there?"

"No. No."

So I didn't hear anything.

A couple of weeks goes by

and I go to my house,

which was rented.

I go in there, and in the foyer

is this big box.

And the box is obviously heavy,

because it's put a dent

in the floor of the house

that I'm renting,

which means I'm gonna

have to pay for it.

Took me about an hour

to crowbar the box apart,

and there was this big block

of metal...

Big square block of metal.

I said, "okay, I got it."

So then I called a friend

of mine who was a sculptor

and a lady and I said, "look,

if I deliver you some materials,

Could you sculpt something

for a garden?"

She goes, "oh, that'd be great."

I knew she wasn't

a particularly good sculptor,

so that was part of the deal.

And three weeks later, she

called to say it was finished.

Called the towing service back.

"Pick this up and take it

and put it in Newman's garden."

So they did.

And to this day, Paul and I

never spoke a word about it.

I guess that sums up

our relationship in a way.

He liked to build

what the English call Q-cars,

which are cars that look normal

but have incredible abilities.

Occasionally, I would meet a guy

that would say,

"I was in Connecticut,

and this Volkswagen pulls up,

and it's Paul Newman

And he just blew my doors off."

He would drive

a disguised Volvo station wagon

with about a 650-horsepower

engine in it.

He just wanted to be,

you know, totally incognito,

if you will.

But if you recognized him,

it was a time for him to just,

you know, open somebody's eyes.

You know, he would do that.

He was just that kind of guy.

We loved Paul for Paul,

not because he was an actor.

He was a wonderful human being,

a great guy to be associated with.

The kind of a guy... "hey,

let's have a beer."

And I think he liked the

Westport countryfied atmosphere

versus the Hollywood atmosphere.

I had taken Paul and his

son around Lime Rock

When I first met them.

He was a California guy,

and he passed on of an overdose.

The tragedy of his death,

it was something that was

never really talked about.

I think what Paul did with that

was he made it his business.

I said to Paul, "Paul, would you

like to take some time off?

I know this is a difficult time."

He said, "Sharp, practice me

five days a week if you can.

I can't change it,

I feel badly that it happened,

But the less I think about it,

the more I motor on.

And racing's a wonderful thing,

'cause it consumes you."

When you get out to that track

and you sit down in that car,

whatever it is that's

roiling around in your head,

It just goes right out the window.

And then the tiger

in the tank came out.

Newman's begun to accelerate,

and the green flag

hasn't even been dropped.

Newman's timed it perfectly.

I used to be able to be psyched.

You know,

you can't psych me anymore.

I'll see a guy in my mirror.

You know, two years ago,

I'd say, "oh, god,

he's gonna catch me."

And now I say, "well, I'm gonna

show him where it's all at."

We won 15 out of 17 races

that year.

He is headed through turn number 12,

and Paul Newman is going to be

The "C" production 1979

national champion.

The margin of victory...

6.3 seconds

between first and second.

Last year, you were second,

and you said then

maybe you could be first with

a little help from the driver.

How do you feel

about the driver right now?

Well, I don't know.

That car worked so...

You know, usually, it's a sign

of modesty... baloney.

Shirley Temple could've

gotten in that thing

and gone like a rocket.

I think although the two of us

are surely not two peas in a pod,

I think we complement each other

very much.

I thought

it was a winning combination,

and I did have confidence

that he would be a

winner in our cars.

How do you feel as a driver?

Are you proud

of what you've just done.

Yeah, it felt pretty good.

I mean, the last time I inherited,

you know, the championship,

and this time

I won it fair-and-square.

There goes Paul Newman

out for another run.

I met Paul in 1977

when we were teammates

on a Ferrari team running

the "24 hours of Daytona."

We really got along very well

from the very beginning.

Paul was a very competitive driver.

He did not want

to take a backseat to anybody.

In 1978, my team went

to the "24 hours of Le Mans,"

where we were fortunate

enough to win there.

Right after that race,

Paul called me and said,

"Dick, I'd really like to take

a shot at winning Le Mans."

In the world of racing,

Le Mans is the epitome.

It's every race driver's dream

to race there and to win there.

They even made a movie about it.

The world's best drivers

competed there...

Formula one drivers,

sports-car drivers,

Indianapolis drivers.

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