DID YOU KNOW:
...That Paul Newman was a Championship-winning race car driver? We all know what a great actor Newman was, but few people outside motorsport knew what a talented and dedicated professional driver he became. Introduced to the sport while filming the movie "Winning" and immediately took up driving sports, most Datsuns/Nissans. He won National Championships, professional TransAm races and even the Daytona 24-hour endurance race.
Motorsports has more than its fair share of actors trying to seek fame in racing and nearly all have proven to be paper tigers. Newman and Steve McQueen are two of the stand outs.. I will say (because I got to work with him a bit) Bobby Carradine ("Revenge of the Nerds") was also quit good. Paul Newman had an opportunity to try a few laps in my Saleen Team Mustang and went very quickly in it. Funny enough he didn’t have his helmet with him so he borrowed mine.. As he was making laps spectators who me helping to strap him in offered to buy my helmet when he returned back to the pits, I declined.
Auto racing, like a lot of other endeavors, looks pretty easy on TV but once in the car and on the track most people find out quickly they do not possess “The Right Stuff”. That’s not to say race car drivers are better than other people it is however not for everybody. As for Paul Newman, he did posses The Right Stuff and then some. Most racers consider Paul as great a race driver as he was an actor.
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