Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman Page #5

I raced at Le Mans nine times

and won in my class twice

and won third overall.

It's certainly an event

that garners attention

from all over the world.

You get 300,000

to 400,000 people every year.

The infield is packed

with campers from every country.

The ambiance

is absolutely incredible.

It's exciting.

It's a 24-hour race that starts

at 4:
00 in the afternoon,

and it ends at 4:00 the next day.

Three, two, one.

Whoever does the most miles

in that period of time

wins the race.

The word got out that Paul was

one of the drivers on the team,

and that went around the world

and all the world press.

By the time

that the first practice session

came at Le Mans,

the crowds had just doubled.

I had never seen

that many people there,

and it was mayhem, really,

a chaos,

especially at the racetrack.

The crowds were anxious

to get in and see him.

We were staying

at this delightful castle

called Malicorne in Le Mans.

After the first night,

we had a problem,

because the paparazzi

were actually climbing up

and scaling the wall to get to

Paul's room.

I felt the private

person that he was

was not a natural mix to go

to the "24 hours at Le Mans."

He was there to race the car,

not to do autographs

or not to pose for pictures

and this and that.

They're a completely

ungoverned bunch.

They're desperate.

They're rabid.

They don't care what the rules

are, what dignity means,

what privacy means.

They're a pain in the ass.

There's no question.

And I don't think Paul

liked it anymore than I did.

He developed, over time,

ways to deal with it,

but you can only control so much.

In 1979, I drove a 935 Porsche.

It was identical to the car

that Paul Newman drove.

We raced a Porsche 935 six-cylinder,

twin-turbocharged Boxer engine.

We ran in qualifying

over 800 horsepower.

In the race, probably

650 to 700 horsepower.

Top speed was over 220 miles

an hour.

It was violent.

It was fantastic.

It was three drivers,

one hour each.

Rolf started the race for us,

I was the next driver,

and then the third driver was Paul.

Paul and Rolf got along great.

Paul really respected the fact

that Rolf was a formula one driver,

a Porsche-factory driver.

Le Mans is a very unique track.

It is roughly eight miles long.

It's part permanent racetrack

and part public highway.

Once a year, the Mulsanne

freeway is closed off,

and it becomes the

Mulsanne straightaway.

For the first few laps,

I think, "this is pretty stupid,"

going down a two-lane highway

at over 200 miles an hour

with guardrails and trees

on the side of the road.

My 512s Ferrari in 1970

went 248 miles an hour.

And you always have respect for it,

because it's a very

dangerous place to race.

You were racing at Le Mans

this year,

and a driver in your class died.

Yeah.

It was three minutes

into the race.

It was a lot of weather there.

- Oh, no.

- An Aston, and it's a big one.

It's hard, because it's

like part of your family.

You don't really think

it's gonna happen anymore.

And then you got to get back out

and do it.

And every time you went

by that spot in the track,

you had to be focused

on moving forward

and not think about what had

happened.

Speed at Le Mans

varies based on the conditions.

In the 1979 race, it was clear

and then it was absolutely a

cloud burst of incredible rain,

incredible fog in the nighttime,

which made it very, very dangerous.

The attrition during the race

was quite high.

A lot of cars ending up

in the guardrails,

spinning off,

not being able to finish.

55 cars started the race

and only 22 finish.

An absolutely tough course.

In rain? At night?

When I saw that, I said: "Wow.

He's real going somewhere."

Our stints were one hour.

You would come in after an hour,

take on a full load of fuel,

change all four tires,

and change drivers.

Hopefully in less than a minute,

because every second

you lost in the pits

was very hard

to make up on the track.

The paparazzi

were really merciless,

especially in our pits,

and they were all over our car.

And we needed to get out

on the racetrack,

and Paul didn't want

to run them over.

You have to block

out everybody, 'cause if you

start to really concentrate...

certainly at Le Mans.

There's so many cameras

everywhere.

If you are aware of that,

you couldn't get in the car

and function.

We had told Paul,

when he gets in the car,

he's belted in,

and he's ready to go,

just turn the ignition on,

fire it up,

and leave no matter how many people

were in front of the car.

And he did, and he bowed

over three paparazzi.

At about the 22nd hour,

we found ourselves

in the lead overall,

and then, on the 23rd hour,

we made a pit stop

with about an hour to go,

and one of the left-front

tires, the nut

had welded itself on because

of the rain and the heat.

So we had to have a long pit stop,

chisel off the front suspension,

and replace it and get

back in the race.

Some interviewer

literally came over

and grabbed Paul,

trying to get an interview

right when we were in the

midst of doing our job.

We look at the camera,

monsieur, pardon. Merci.

The camera is right in front

of you.

I just want to know

exactly your impressions

of Le Mans now.

After 22 hours, you are in

second position in the race.

The idea that racing,

which requires

extreme concentration and focus,

to have somebody

interfere with that, to me,

that's criminal.

Rolf took off, really

bent on regaining the lead.

Unfortunately, we kind

of pushed the car too hard.

We lost a cylinder.

And so Rolf had to baby the car

that last hour,

and we ended up second overall

but first in the IMSA class.

At the end of the race,

the crowd absolutely

emptied the grandstands

and came onto the track.

The crew had to form a

barricade around the car,

and it was pushed up

to victory circle.

It was very exciting,

very magical.

Paul, many times after that.

He said it was the most

rewarding race of his life.

I was just little Dickie Barbour

from La Mesa, California,

and all of a sudden, you know,

we're in this limelight.

Anybody would be pretty struck

by having this happen to them.

I think we were kind

of standing back,

watching all this happening,

and it was certainly a

matter of pride for us,

you know, because he

did choose to race with us.

After Newman was in the car

that finished second overall

at Le Mans, his stock

went up with a lot of people.

Other drivers

from around the world

really developed

incredible respect for Paul

and that he was one of them,

because

they all knew how difficult

winning at Le Mans was,

and most of them had never won.

It legitimized all of us,

the victory there.

I believe that Paul

didn't go back for the reason

that the paparazzi just

made it so difficult

for him to concentrate.

It kind of took the pleasure

out of it for him.

The victory lap

and the taste of triumph

certainly aren't new to Newman

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