[Fot] Paul Newman

[Rocky Entriken]

I met Paul Newman at the 1977 SCCA National Convention in St. Louis where he was re-presented the President's Cup he'd won at the 1976 Runoffs. Learned a new word from his speech too, "encomium." I was doing a motorsports column for the newspaper I worked for then, so after the dinner when he was sitting surrounded by friends I introduced myself. He shook my hand very cordially, and when I broached the idea of an interview he declined with equal cordiality (Knowing of his aversion to such things anyway, I rather expected to be declined). 

Later that evening the then-common post-convention high-jinks ensued in the hotel basement not far from the ballroom. Tricycle races ("Formula T") around the free-standing elevator column. Really small kiddie tricycles. And there was PLN, matched up against Bob Tullius. "Ya want me to show ya how it's done?" Tullius asked. "Nah, Joanne's been trying to show me for years," Newman replied, lying with his stomach on the trike seat and pedaling with his hands while Tullius tried it the regular way. I forget who "won." The merriment lasted until someone not associated with SCCA and the convention spotted Newman and bulled in to demand an autograph, at which point PLN disappeared like smoke in the breeze.

Just standing back, watching the proceedings and how much he was enjoying the company of his fellow SCCA racers -- not a star, not a big shot, just another racer having fun bench racing with people of similar passion -- I had my column anyway. Didn't need the interview to do a portrait of the man.

--Rocky Entriken
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Joe Boruch 
  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 
  Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 5:00 PM
  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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