On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 3:24 AM, John Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 07:41:02PM -0400, Ken Waller wrote: >> I'm sad too ann by his passing, for not only his acting ability but also >> his car driving ability. >> He began competitive sports car driving relatively late in life >> (somewhere in his 40's I believe) & was still very competitive into his >> early 80's ! > > He was still pretty darn competitve around two years ago, when I last > watched him - he was driving go-karts at a fundraiser at the San Jose > ChampCar race. I'd met him a couple of times before that (as well as > seeing him in pit lane quite a few times). The first time I got to > talk to him was a year or so after Michael Andretti started driving > for Newman/Haas racing - while he (PJN) generally didn't want to be > photographed at the races, he was happy to pose beside the car as > "Paul Newman, race car owner", rather than "Paul Newman, celebrity". <snip>
When I was a teenager in the '70's I had a subscription to Road and Track and I remember every year some sponsor had a list of all the champs from the various SCCA classes. Sure enough, there's Paul Newman, champion in some production class or another. I did a double take - read the name then looked at the photo to see if it was the same Paul Newman, and sure enough it was. I had heard he raced cars, but had no idea he was ~that~ good. The cool thing is that there was no fanfare, no big article about "Paul Newman celebrity racer", nothing. Just a little thumbnail and his name, just like everyone else. I thought the whole thing was pretty cool... He seemed like a nice guy. Not perfect, but a nice guy. And that's a very high compliment. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
