Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman Page #6
and to his race crew,
but the big payoff is the
national championship trophy.
It's not an Oscar,
but to Paul Newman,
in his second career.
Will he retire when he gets it?
"Hey," he says, "I'll retire
when I get slower, not older."
He really felt at home here.
People in racing,
they knew who he was,
and they were impressed by him,
but they didn't bug him.
When P.L. was at the racetrack,
he was another race driver,
in his mind.
He wasn't P.L. Newman
the movie star.
He was P.L. Newman
the race driver.
And he conducted himself
like that,
and he never put himself
on a pedestal ever.
He was just another driver
that you wanted to beat.
You know, he got that
much credibility.
People didn't even think
of him being a movie-star racer.
He was just a racer.
There was a little boy,
standing with his mother,
and Paul walked by, and I heard this.
The mother grabbed the little boy
and said:
"Do you know who that is?"
And the little boy said:
"Yeah, it's Paul Newman."
And she said:
"Yes,but do you know who he is?"
And he said:
"Yes, it's a racer."
And I thought,
"isn't that wonderful?"
Because that's what would
make Paul very happy.
He drove in the
"24 hours of Daytona,"
and then won worldwide
recognition by finishing second
in the famous 24-hour
race at Le Mans.
This last year,
Paul's fascination with racing
has been such that he's
competed in more events.
In fact, some people
think he's spending more time
with his racing career
now than with his movie career.
Every year, I keep saying
that I'm gonna, you know,
stop all this.
So now it looks like I got
a couple of really good scripts
that will go during the
spring and the summer.
So all I have to do is burn
all those scripts, you see,
so I can get back in the car again.
He wasn't so much
divided between the two.
It was that film
would come second to racing.
What is the mystique
about beating the other guy,
about winning?
Well, whatever it is,
it's a mystique
that's held in high reverence
by people in racing.
And I was driving the pro cars,
and Paul was driving
the amateur circuit.
But then he got so good
that it made sense
for him to join me in the pro races.
The car in the background
here was a big IMSA contender.
We had over 900 horsepower.
I had to make a choice
when I went from amateurs
to professional racing,
whether I wanted to be
a big fish in a little pond
or a little fish in a big pond.
Going from 300-some-odd
horsepower to 900 horsepower
is that quantum leap
that you keep talking about.
I think I was away 24 weekends
this summer.
If I wasn't racing,
the Can-Am team was racing
or I was running out to Ohio
to visit Joanne who was
doing a play out there,
and I felt as though I was
inside of a meat grinder,
but all I got to do
if I don't want to do it is stop.
I was worried about him.
I really was seriously concerned.
His whole career
looked as though it was gonna
because all he wanted
to do was race.
They'll have to strap me down
before they keep me
out of these things.
Welcome back, Joanne.
We understand you taught
him everything he knows.
Of course. Absolutely.
And that's why he drives so well.
Joanne has really,
through all of this, you know,
when I was racing badly,
she was supportive.
When I was racing well,
she was supportive.
She keeps asking
the eternal question,
"well, next season, what?
Do we go to France and Paris,
or is it Somers Point
and Pocono."
And she's been just
patient beyond all belief.
Anything can happen
when you're in a race car,
and I think that that was a thing
that she was very concerned about,
about with him becoming,
in some way,
injured with the family
and all of that and also
starting late in life.
Racing was more dangerous
then than it is now,
and it was always a risk
to have him at the wheel.
He was very aggressive, you know.
You can drive hard and you
can even drive extra hard,
and you're not gonna
win any races.
The only way that you're
ever gonna win a race
is just to be right on the
edge of it all the time.
He was not afraid to test the limits.
And sometimes, you got
to get off and go off the track
or brush that wall
to find out where the limit is.
Oh, Newman and Bowman
have gone off.
And he's had a lot of spins,
and there have been
a couple of times
When he didn't come around.
You know, when I'm sitting,
waiting, and saying,
Like, "what happened?
Where did he go?"
Newman was on Viagra
before they even made Viagra.
He was a hard-dick brother.
I didn't want to see him do it,
because it was dangerous,
and I didn't want
to see anything happen to him.
I think everybody wanted
him to quit racing except him.
He was under no pressure to win.
He was under no pressure to go fast.
He didn't have to.
That's not how he made a living.
He was challenging himself as a man.
What's your strategy going to be?
Just drive the race
and try to stay alive.
A racing driver
is very aware of the fact
that death can happen at any time
just because you're going
so fast and there's
so many things out of your control...
The weather, other cars,
mechanical failures, tire failures.
But you're so passionate
about being a race driver
that that overcomes all those senses.
The biggest vintage-car race
in the country
is the Monterey Historics.
In 2010, one of the cars
I drove was the 1958 Scarab.
The race started,
we went over the hill,
and just before the Andretti hairpin,
one car misjudged
the speed of the car
that he was catching at the
back of the pack and spun.
The car right behind him lost
hit the guardrail on the inside,
and bounced across the track
as I passed and ran
into me in the back...
my left rear corner...
and started flipping the car.
After the crash, the car
was loaded on a flatbed...
Well, the remains of it.
And, in essence, it was destroyed.
But you can fix anything,
especially when it's worth $6 million.
And I thought my neck was broken,
but I raced again in a month.
You know what this reminds me of?
The theater.
It has its audience, its cast,
its drama, comedy,
and sometimes it's tragedy, too.
Things happen in a microsecond,
and sometimes it's not
in your control
like it wasn't in Rolf's control.
In the LA Times grand prix
in 1983,
going into turn 9 at well
over 200 miles an hour,
his rear wing broke.
Paul understood the danger
of racing firsthand after Rolf died.
Paul loved making salad dressing,
and at Christmas time,
he and A.E. Hotchner,
the author,
would make up salad dressing.
They'd put it in an old wine split,
and they'd give it to
the neighbors and the relatives.
And on a Saturday night cookout,
often we'd barbecue out
at the track where the guys
are working on the car.
Paul would go get all the ingredients
to make his salad dressing.
So we'd have salad and
hamburger and fruit,
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