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Monday, January 24, 2022
The Racing Legacy of Paul Newman
The call at home would have been considered an unusual one if you didn’t know the guy as well as the person who answered the phone did.
“Dave? I’ve got a deal from a guy in Maine,” the familiar voice on the other end said.
“It’s a custom Volvo 960 station wagon, OK? But it’s different. He’s going to take a small-block Ford V-8 racing engine, strip out the transmission and suspension, then supercharge it. My guy’s gonna make it for me. Would you like one?”
David Letterman was stunned.
“Well yeah, Paul,” Letterman told the caller. “Wouldn’t we all?”
So, Letterman, one of America’s most famous talk-show personalities and a car nut, told Paul Newman, one of America’s most famous actors and a car nut, to go for it.
Supercharge the Volvo. Swedish safety be damned! Go nuts!
“So, Paul eventually brings the car over, drops the car off and this is the kind of car that people would stare at streetlights,” Letterman told his TV audience after Newman’s death in 2008. “It was like an atomic furnace under the hood. I used to love driving it. It would go 170 miles per hour (270 km/h) and underneath the exhaust system would glow bright orange.”
Then one day Letterman was in the Volvo on a New York Interstate with his girlfriend when she asked: “What’s that smell?”
Letterman turned to her and said, “Raw power and speed, baby.”
Wrong. The Volvo was on fire.
“We had to pull over, the car was shooting flames everywhere. It couldn’t handle the power,” Letterman said. “I call Paul and say ‘ . . . Everything is on fire.’ But, wow, what a car. Paul Newman and I were the only ones with this car.”
Unique and Newman usually ended up in the same sentence.
He’s remembered as an actor, a colleague, a friend, and most importantly, perhaps, a towering philanthropist. But leave it to Letterman to pay the most respect to the car legend.
“A guy who knew how to live life.”
In a 1991 interview with the New York Daily News, Newman said: “I had no natural gift to be anything, not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches, not anything. So, I’ve worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.”
Newman, however, was the real thing.
He died on Sept. 26, 2008, at age 83 in his Connecticut home, fittingly close to Lime Rock Raceway.
His career in acting could fill one end of the internet to the other; more than 100 movies, TV shows and stage plays. But what most people wouldn’t know is that he lived cars. He breathed cars. He could have only done cars and would have been happy.
He was a world-class race-car driver as well as one of the most successful team owners in the sport’s history. Historians said that had he never acted, his racing career alone would have garnered him great fame and fortune.
Those who knew him remember that he was always easy to spot in the garage. Shorter than expected. Movie star thin. Blue eyes searing the darkness of the garage. And always accessible.
Newman began racing after starring in “Winning,” a 1969 movie about Indy-style oval-track, open-wheel competition. He loved the taste of a racecourse and the smell of ethanol. He took to road racing on long tracks where he could use his skill on left and right turns.
He began racing professionally in 1972 at age 47 and would continue for another 30 years, first with Datsun (later Nissan), and was a regular in Victory Lane. Newman as a racer was affiliated with Bob Sharp Racing (Datsun and Nissan) and Dick Barbour Racing (Porsche). He finished second in 1979 at the 24 Hours of LeMans endurance race in France, in a Porsche. He won his class at the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona, Fla., endurance race, at age 70. He was the oldest driver to win a major professional racing event.
But most of Newman’s success came as a co-owner with Carl Haas, a sports-car driver, team owner and Lola racecar and parts importer. In 1983, they formed Newman-Haas Racing on the open-wheel circuits and enjoyed enormous success in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) open-wheel series.
Newman and Haas signed two ex-Formula One World Champions — Nigel Mansell and Mario Andretti — and compiled 107 Indy car race wins.
Newman was also a partner in the Formula Atlantic Championship team Newman Wachs Racing and owned a NASCAR Winston Cup (now called the NASCAR Cup Series) car before selling it to Penske Racing.
His movie bosses were never happy with his racing so he would enter events with a pseudonym or as PL Newman. But he was always afforded privacy and respect at the racetrack, usually walking or riding a mini motorcycle alone with no security.
Personally, I will never forget the day some years ago when I met him in Cleveland, Ohio, 24 hours before a race.
I was walking through the pit area, a young reporter in search of a story, and there he was.
In the moment, I asked for an interview.
“Sure, kid,” he said. “I’ve got two minutes, but you probably have 20 questions. Give me your best question and I’ll answer it.”
What’s your greatest moment in racing, I asked?
“Tomorrow,” he said. “And, if not then, next week.”
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Taking the fun out of living for everyone else
At this time of year – sometimes earlier, often later – we go to Naples, Fla. for a week or 10 days of sunshine and warmth. Nothing beats walking in the sands of the Gulf of Mexico, out on the 134-year-old Naples Pier and through the streets of the old southeast city that’s primarily famous for golf, tennis and swamp buggy races.
Many well-known athletes and artists live in Naples. Singer Donna Summer died at her home there a few years ago. Members of the band Sly and the Family Stone live just up the line, in Ft. Myers.
The last time we were in Naples, we walked to a part of town that was new to us. It was near the harbour and there was a small mall there with all the stores pretty much selling the same stuff: men’s and women’s summer shirts and shorts, black-and-white photos of “old” Naples, and the like. There was one small restaurant, specializing in – surprise! – seafood. It’s name: Schitt’s Creek (now closed).
But that was then and this is now. We crossed back into Canada in March 2020, about a minute before they closed the border. We’ve been wearing masks and getting vaccinated ever since, it seems. Our mid-winter-vacations now consist of staying home, reading books and newspapers, debating the topics of the day and watching TV news, movies and documentaries.
One night, I was watching a panel discussion on TV in which the topic was plant-based “meat” and “chicken.” I like drumsticks and I like steak. I am not a fan of cardboard, which is what a lot of this “food” tastes like. One of the panelists noted that former U.S. vice-president Al Gore had gone vegan, was an investor in a meatless breakfast-patty company, and had said recently that eating vegan burgers can help to reverse climate change. I heard this and I thought to myself:
“Why do some people just want to take the fun out of living for everybody else?”
This reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio and when he won an Oscar. It was 2016 and when he went up to give his acceptance speech, we got a lecture about climate change. The fact that many of his personal cars are not electric (OK, they’re hybrids) and that he flits around the Mediterranean in a yacht that burns diesel fuel doesn’t seem to matter – although I’m sure he buys lots of carbon credits to salve his conscience.
But his passion had a great effect on a young editor at the Star, whose every second word then became “transit.” We’d go into a story meeting and one suggestion would be to find out how much money it was going to cost to repair the Gardiner and you’d hear her muttering, “transit,” or “people should be riding transit,” or “people should start taking transit.” And then she would leave work and get into her Chrysler Crossfire and drive home on the Gardiner.
When I heard her going on and on about all this, you know what I started thinking, don’t you?
“Why do some people just want to take the fun out of living for everybody else?”
There is nothing wrong with transit; I use it myself. But when you’re packed in like cattle, as I was on a Mississauga bus just last week, and it’s winter and the snow on your coat melts and you’re damp and the guy next to you is breathing directly into your face and you know you’re going to catch a cold, you start thinking to yourself that there are probably more pleasant ways to get to work – like in a car that’s toasty warm. Which brings me to this.
I’m not happy with the prime minister these days. Most of the provincial premiers aren’t near the top of my hit parade either. Not because of COVID-19 – nobody in the world knows how to get a handle on that – but the procrastinating that’s going on so far as electric vehicles are concerned.
In April of 2021 – a little less than a year ago now – Trudeau committed Canada to reducing emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Two provinces, Quebec and B.C., signed on immediately while the remainder were, and remain, lukewarm.
Since then, I have not seen much happening. Yes, we have electric cars coming out of our ears. Auto manufacturers are churning them out, automotive writers review them with regularity; newspaper and TV commercials promote them. But, as you may have noticed, not that many of them are being sold. Why? Because most people aren’t stupid.
Until the feds and the provinces stop talking and start doing things like installing charging stations in large numbers at service stations or on city streets, nothing is ever going to happen. Right now, I can pull into a filling station and be gassed up and on my way within five minutes. Until that happens with electricity, Trudeau and the rest can forget about it.
Of course, maybe it’s just been a case of some people trying to take the fun out of living for everybody else. And where have we heard that before?
Norris McDonald, a past Wheels editor in chief, covers the Canadian automotive and global racing scene for the Star. He is a member of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame. nmcdonald@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter @NorrisMcDonald2.
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Autophile: Barry Davis
Five years after leaving a broadcasting career stretching almost three decades, Barry Davis has re-invented himself as a car salesman and is fronting several tribute bands.
It’s been an interesting transition for Davis, who worked for more than 14 years for Rogers Sportsnet as part of its coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays. He was the in-game reporter and became known for his player interviews, including one instance when he did so while wearing goggles during the team’s wild champagne celebrations after clinching a wild card berth in 2016. He and the company parted ways in 2017 and he’s been selling cars since January of last year.
A colleague at the dealership suggested he set up his desk with photos to reveal a little about himself to customers. Davis then put up a digital display with many images from his Blue Jays broadcast days and it has resonated with potential clients.
“It is pretty cool because it gives us a bit of a talking point, especially if it’s a sports fan,” Davis said. “It’s a nice ice-breaker with customers, at least the ones who are sports fans. I’d like to think the cars and the job that I do as a salesperson are what close the deals.”
Davis began doing sports and music podcasts but struggled financially to make it work. In November 2019 he took a warehouse job at Bass Pro. However, he was laid off two weeks before Christmas in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Davis then thought about working in the automotive industry, which was allowed to stay open by the province. He contacted Toronto Raptors’ superfan Nav Bhatia – whom he knew from having worked on Rogers’ basketball broadcasts – asking him for some advice about working as a car salesperson.
Bhatia, who owns three dealerships, offered Davis a job. Davis got his Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council licence and began working for commission as a sales and leasing consultant at Rexdale Hyundai in January 2021.
Three months later, Davis switched to Georgetown Honda because he was looking for something closer to home and liked the brand, as he’s been a loyal customer for many years. He was told about the Honda job by Joe Pinto, who does the sound for Davis’ music gigs at Spot 1 Grill & Music in Brampton and also works at the dealership.
He was feeling good about his new job, but COVID-19 impacted him again. Dealerships are operating with few new vehicles because some factories that produce semiconductors, which are a major component in building cars, shut down during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020.
A second wave of closures in the fall further exacerbated the problem, even though there is strong consumer demand for new cars. Customers seeking to make purchases are being told it can take several weeks or months for the cars to be delivered. Normally they are available for pickup in just a few days or a couple weeks.
“It’s becoming much harder for the consumer and becomes a much bigger challenge for the salesperson, especially when you are working in a commission business, where you don’t get paid until the car is delivered,” said Davis, adding he does receive a small-guaranteed salary.
Musical tributes
Davis has also been working hard in his spare time as a musician, something he did before he entered the broadcast business. After seeing a documentary about Tom Petty, he put together a tribute band called We Ain’t Petty and soon began receiving gigs. He then developed a tribute band for The Cars, an idea he first had in 1984. He dresses up like the band’s lead singer, the late Rik Ocasek. A friend, Ed Sousa— who manages Classic Bowl in Mississauga – suggested the name Driven, and soon started booking him.
Along with Tom Forth, who is a member of Driven, Davis has also put together a John Lennon and Paul McCartney tribute duo called Nowhere Man. Just when he was starting to receive engagements for all his bands, the fast-spreading Omicron variant led to another closure of businesses. While he’s been challenged significantly in his full-time job and part-time career, Davis is trying to look at everything positively.
“The most beautiful, amazing thing that has come out of me leaving Sportsnet is the number of people I have met and have gotten to know and who have become really close friends since I left, not to mention being able to open my doors to music,” he said. “I hadn’t performed in almost 30 years before I went back on stage again and performed in a band (after leaving Sportsnet). I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I got back on stage and began performing.
“I’ve been able to find happiness in other ways. It’s not necessarily all about what I’m doing for a living that makes me happy now. I just do what I think is the best thing for me.”
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2022 Ford Bronco Raptor Is a 400-HP Rock Crawler That Never Skips Leg Day
The high-powered Bronco variant borrows off-road suspension hardware from F-150 Raptor, including standard 37-inch tires.
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2022 Ford Bronco Raptor Starts under $70,000
The 400-hp Raptor's starting price of $69,995 fits in neatly between the prices of the 450-hp F-150 Raptor and the 470-hp Wrangler 392.
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