[Fot] Paul Newman

[Doug Mitchell]

My first run in with Paul was at Detroit in 1986. I was trying to get to
another location on the
corner and had to get around him. I asked him to move and he was very
apologetic for being
in my way. I then realized who it was.

At the US Grand Prix in Phoenix in 1990, I was working a station behind the
TransAm paddock.
Another worker across the street was trying to signal me that someone behind
me wanted to
ask me a question. As there were only about 3 F1 cars on course, when they
passed by, he
yelled at me to turn around. It was raining and these two guys wanted to
know if I thought if
the track was going to dry up before the TA session. One of the guys had his
hat pulled low
over his face, but he turned his face up to me to ask the question. I
immediately knew it was
PLN. I told him that the track might dry up if it stopped raining, but we
had a large puddle on
the line that passed for a lake in Phoenix. He and the other guy (Bob Sharp)
both started
laughing. I realized that there were scores of women looking for him but he
wasn't going to
let them know where he was.

I saw him again at Detroit a couple of years later, and he was always very
cordial to marshals.

Doug

  -----Original Message-----
  From: fot-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:fot-bounces at autox.team.net]On
Behalf Of Joe Boruch
  Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 6:00 PM
  To: tarch at bellsouth.net
  Cc: lcouperin at hotmail.com; enichol at bellsouth.net;
taylorrichardl at bellsouth.net; leetheviolinist at gmail.com;
rltaylor3 at gmail.com; nancy_mitchco at hotmail.com; ruthie.taylor at gmail.com;
fot at autox.team.net
  Subject: Re: [Fot] Paul Newman


  I met Paul at a driver's meeting at an SCCA race at Lime Rock some years
ago.  That's when he agreed to be an honerable FOT member.  He was very
aproachable at the track as long as the subject was racing.  My wife started
up a conversation with him later that day and called him Mr. Newman.  He
replied "Call me Paul".  His wife and daughter were often up in the tower
watching his race and were also very approachable.  He was still racing SCCA
last year, but was doing regional races instead of the National races that
he did in previous years.  He was still winning, too.  It was at an SCCA
regional race in 2007 that Barbara Walters went for a track ride with Paul
around Lime Rock.  She was doing a story about living a long life.

  -- "Richard Taylor" <tarch at bellsouth.net> wrote:

  Ten years or so ago, I was sitting with a group of racers in the lobby of
that Holiday Inn-type hotel at the northeast corner of Daytona International
Speedway. In comes Newman and plops down on a sofa in a friendly-exhausted
sort of way and starts bench racing right there. In a few minutes he and I
go over to the temporary bar set up for cocktail hour. He orders a Budweiser
and I order a Heinekens. Newman digs into his pocket to pay for his beer and
the bartender says, “That’s okay Mr. Newman, it’s on the house.”



  The bartender then looks at me. So I say “Well, do you know who I am?”
He says, “No, who are you?”



  I tell him, “I’m Richard Taylor from Atlanta”



  The bartender thinks a second then says, “That’s great. That’ll be $3.50.”



  Newman, still standing there, chuckles. While I am waiting for my change
he takes his free beer over to our group and tells them the story; to which
they all laugh their collective asses off.



  Of course there was no escaping the aura of his celebrity, but somehow it
never eclipsed the camaraderie of our spontaneous little group of racers.



  If one can make a judgment of a man by an antidotal moment, in my mind
Newman exhibited class in its noblest unrefined form.



  Richard





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