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My experiences with a great man... RIP - Paul Newman

Posted 09-27-2008 at 09:52 PM by wombat7
I posted some of this in the thread about his death, but want to elaborate more.

I got the opportunity to work with this great man in 2006. I was hired as an assistant engineer for the Newman Wachs Champ Car Atlantic team. This was a very young team started by Newman and Eddie Wachs to help develop drivers for the Champ Car World series. It was also a place that young engineers could get experience in the world of professional motorsports.

I first met Mr Newman at the Champ Car race in Portland. I will never forget how everyone on the team stopped working for a couple seconds when he walked into the tent for the first time that weekend. He made sure that he walked up to everyone one of us, say hi, and ask us how we were doing that day. After he left, I remember thinking 'Wow... that was Paul Newman.' It was during that weekend that my grandmother passed away. This was a very hard thing for me... As I was trying to come to grips with it at the race track, Mr Newman came up to me and offered his condolences... This completely blew me away... A man of his stature who had just met me the day before came up to me, shook my hand and asked if there was anything he could do.

I didn't make it to the funeral because I was across the country, but made it home as soon as possible. My parents picked me up from the airport and we went to the grave site so I could say goodbye to my grandmother. When we got there I was astonished to see a large, beautiful flower arrangement on a stand sitting at the foot of her grave. I walked up to it and read the card which almost knocked me off my feet. The flower arrangement had been sent to the funeral home by Mr Newman and the other team owner. Again, all of this done by a man who I had known for about a week at that point. It was at that point that I gained a great respect and admiration for him.

I left the team at the end of the 2006 season to return to school and work on completing my degree. I returned to racing for the 2007 season and saw Mr Newman around the paddock as usual and when our paths would cross he would stop and we would talk for a couple minutes before we had to go back to what we were doing.

The 2008 season started with all of the drama and stress created by the IRL/Champ Car merger. When I had time to breathe at the race track I made an effort to look for him, but could never find him. By the time the 3rd race in Long Beach came around, his absence was very noticeable. It was around this time that his medical condition became a prominent thing in the news and I hoped that it wasn't true. He was Paul Newman... he's invincible! The season continued and every weekend I made sure to look for PLN. It wasn't until Pole Day at Indianapolis that I saw him. I was walking out to pit lane and was passed by a golf cart with Paul and his brother on it. The cart could not move as fast as normal due to the massive number of photographers so I caught up without much effort. I was walking past the cart as he was getting off and he stopped me to say hi and ask me how things were going. I was completely floored by this. He was surrounded by reports asking for interviews, photographers trying to snap pictures of him, and he ignored all of them to talk to me.

Paul Newman was a great man who made an impact on the lives of many people, including me. He was a humanitarian who seemed to care more about the happiness of others than his own. He will be greatly missed. I think anyone who owns it should watch Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or Winning this weekend as we all remember PLN.

'Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.' - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
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