Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman

Description

Paul Newman is one of the Great Hollywood Stars - an actor who's performances had such integrity they lifted him to the heights of stardom. But he remained a down-to-earth man, and nowhere is this more obvious than his collaboration to form the Newman-Hass racing team and his career as a Motorsport racer. He got the racing bug after filming "Winning", and set out to become a racer himself. Initially dismissed as a spoilt film star, he soon proved his critics wrong, with his first 1972 race for Datsun, showing commitment, talent, technique, and a professional determination to win. He learnt in a Lotus Elan, then a Triumph TR-6, and won his first SCCA championship in 1979, saying 'This is better than the Oscars'. He notched up a series of successes both on track and with his team - Daytona 24 Hour race, where he won his class, aged 70; second in the Le Mans 24 hour race of 1979 racing a Porsche, 107 Daytona wins and eight championships for the Newman-Hass racing team, which both Nigel Mansell and Mario Andretti raced for, and built up an impressive stable of cars, from Porsches and Ferraris to modified VW's and Volvos, all featured in this book along the legendary racing career of a man who was a passionate car racer, making this a title bound to appeal to any racing fan. With tributes from Jay leno, Carl Hass, Mario Andretti, Brock Yates, Patrick Dempsey, Roger Penslee, and others this is a fitting tribute to a man who was as passionate in his racing as his acting, and once commented he only took films on to afford his racing career.

Matt Stone (Glendale, CA), former executive editor of Motor Trend magazine, has been a professional automotive journalist and photographer since 1985. He is the author and photographer of several books, including Motorbooks' best-selling My First Car (2011), 365 Cars You Must Drive (2006), and McQueen's Machines (2010). He is the co-author, with Preston Lerner, of Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman (2009, 2014) and History's Greatest Automotive Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed (Motorbooks, 2013, 2014).www.mattstonecars.com/bio.htmlPreston Lerner, a regular contributor to Automobile magazine, has written about motorsports for publications ranging from Sports Illustrated to the New York Times. Lerner has co-authored Motorbooks titles Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman and History's Greatest Automotive Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed with Matt Stone.Mario Andretti is auto racing's definition of "Been There, Won That." His professional driving career spanned more than four decades and includes pit-stops as a Formula One driver (1978), an Indy 500 winner (1969), the Daytona 500 (1967), and four CART/USAC open-wheel racing national championships. Andretti has been called Mr. Versatile, known for driving everything from USAC sprint cars on the dirt to IndyCars, sports racing prototypes, and of course F1. He was Newman Haas Racing's first driver when the team was formed in 1982, raced there for 12 seasons, and is considered one of Paul Newman's closest friends.

"Who was faster, Steve McQueen or Paul Newman? Dick Barbour, a driver who raced with and against both, gives the nod to McQueen. He says that while McQueen was "a natural," Newman was "methodical." This is but one of many illuminating insights in "Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman," a timely new book about the legendary actor who died last year at 83." - Jerry Garrett, The New York Times