Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman - Softcover

Hollywood movie icon, racing driver, team owner and salad dressing magnate. Paul Newman lived life to the full. Now, for the first time, the riviting story of his racing life is expertly told by Matt Stone and Preston Lerner, with the help of fellow racers, engineers, team owners and actors. --Autosport, October, 2009--This first words in this book come from the pen of Mario Andretti: 'Paul Newman was one of us.' A little later, he adds his impression on first seeing Newman's name painted on the name of his race car in 1967: 'Why would Cool Hand Luke want his name on what was probably the worst Can Am car ever designed?' That pretty much sums it up; Paul Newman came to racing somewhat late in life, but he was a racer. We get the entire story of Paul Newman's racing career, from the first time he took his Porsche-engined '53 Beetle out onto the Willow Springs racetrack, through catching the racing bug for real while filming 'Winning,' and on through his evolution from weekend Datsun 510 racer into Trans Am winner and team owner. Motor Trend executive editor Matt Stone and co-authors Preston Lerner and Mario Andretti interviewed a broad swath of Newman's instructors, competitors, and team members, and the reader comes away with a good sense of the kind of racer he was. According to Bob Sharp:'His first year was a struggle. He wasn't naturally fast. But he had a sensitive touch and was very easy on equipment. Even in the beginning, when he wasn't the fastest guy out there, he was always clean and disciplined. Never was he off the track. He improved very logically, systematically, and as he got more and more races under his belt, he got better and better and better. It was unbelievable. He became a very, very good professional driver.'Newman moved up to faster and faster cars, racing a Porsche 935 in the 1979 24 Hours Of Le Mans and winning his first Trans Am race in 1982. After that, he moved into CART team ownership and yet more racing. Though his acting gig occasionally got in the way of his real profession and his philanthropic ventures grew in importance, he more or less lived racing until his death at the age of 83 in 2008. Reading this book, you'll get all the twists and turns of this story, and Stone's hagiographic tone may be forgiven when referring a man who, by all accounts, really was the all-around good guy he appeared to be.As a nice bonus at the end, we get a chapter devoted to Newman's street cars over the years. Not only was there the Porsche Super 90-powered '53 Beetle in the early days; Newman decided that wasn't enough, so in 1969 he commissioned a Ford 351-powered Beetle. In the 1980s and 1990s, Newman drove some hot engine-swapped Volvo wagons. How about an '88 740GLE with a 400-horse turbo Buick V6? Or a supercharged Ford small-block in a '96 Volvo 960 wagon? This one gets a four-rod rating. Murilee says check it out! --jalopnik dot com, Oct 2009&-;Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman by Matt Stone and Preston Lerner is the latest in a very strong line of releases from Motorbooks. This book chronicles Newman's career as a hard running race car driver complete with great sidebars from the people he ran with and against, and has a foreward by Mario Andretti. Many people know that Newman was into cars, but few realize that he was a multi-time SCCA national champion. He drove dirt track cars, and in one well documented sidebar story in the book, a Winston Cup car. He had been offered a shot at driving the car, owned by Richard Childress, during a test day. NASCAR approved the test and Mike Helton asked that the crew guys pull some timing out of the motor and set the spoilers to keep the car glued to the track and not in lap record form. They did neither. Newman hauled around the track and matched the lap times of several hard running professional drivers. That was the charm of this man. --Octane Magazine, Novem --Leicester Mercury, January, 2010

Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman is also the title of the 2015 documentary about Paul Newman from director Adam Carolla. Read the book that inspired the film!

Though he is famous as one of Hollywood's greatest actors, a world-class humanitarian, and the founder of the Newman's Own natural food empire, the late Paul Newman had another intriguing and lesser-known passion: he was an avid, successful, and well-respected car racer and team owner. In Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman, Matt Stone of Motor Trendteams up with Preston Lerner of Automobile magazine to bring you the incredible racing biography of a man whose serious racing days began at an age when many race car drivers contemplate retirement. It is the story of someone who entered the 24 Hours of Daytona at the age of 70 and made his last professional race outing at 82; whose roster of Newman Haas drivers reads like a who's-who of open-wheel racing; and whose interest in cars extended from the likely suspects to old trucks and new hybrids. Newman is also the charming pal who, when a miserably wrecked Ferrari was dropped at his door by the incorrigible prankster Robert Redford, returned the favor by having the car, crushed into a cube, delivered to Redford's living room. The anecdotes, the races, the cars―Winning contains them all, adding up to an award-winning and unprecedented look at Paul Newman's racing talent, unwavering conviction, endearing charm, and enduring spirit.