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(From Newman-Haas.com)
Was your work in the film Winning your introduction to racing?
Yes. That got me started, but actually, in those days I was making three, three and a half pictures a year; it literally took me three years to get going. We did that picture in ’68, and it wasn’t until 1972 that I got going. I knew if I wanted to start something, I’d really have to go at it, and for 15 years I just drove from May to October and never did a film, all I did was race.
How did you actually go about starting racing off the screen?
I ran a Lotus Elan to get my regional license, then I decided I wanted to start my own team so I bought an ex-Group 44 TR6 from Bob Tullius, and I won the (SCCA D Production) championship in ‘76 with that car. But I inherited the win there, so it wasn’t really until 1979, after I had hooked up with Bob Sharp and started running a C Production Z-car, that I ran a good race and really won the championship.
What was it that attracted you to racing in the first place?
I’m not sure. I was fascinated by it. Also, I had tried any number of sports with very little success, I was a bad boxer. I was a bad football player, a bad tennis player, a bad badminton player, a bad skier, a bad hockey player, so I thought, “Maybe there’s something in this!” It’s the first thing that I ever found I had any grace in. I’m not a very graceful person.
Have you ever wished you would have gone racing sooner?
No, because by the time I started, I was able to get right into good equipment, and I don’t think if I’d have started younger that I would have had as good equipment as I did.
As you were getting involved, did you have any idea that racing would take you where it has?
No, because I had no idea I would become as passionate about it as I did. It has given me a tremendous amount of pleasure, it’s given me a lot of confidence. I was never a great driver – I started racing when I was 47 years old – but I got to be pretty good. I was a pretty good driver for about five years.
What do you consider your greatest achievement in the sport?
I guess I’m the oldest driver to win a Trans-Am race, and when we won Daytona, the 24 Hours (in 1995), that made me the oldest driver to win a major professionally sanctioned race. They wanted me to take the last stint (At Daytona), but the transmission was beginning to go, and I said, “I ain’t getting’ in that car. If it breaks, I don’t want to be in it when it breaks.” Finally I did get in, when we had an absolute lock on it, and I knew I couldn’t possibly screw things up.
How did you come to be involved in your partnership with Carl Haas?
When I first ran my team in the Can-Am with Bill Freeman as my partner, Carl was the Lola distributor, and he would provide my Can-Am cars late, overweight and over budget! When he called me about starting an Indy car team with Mario, I said, “Where would you like to meet and when?”
What do you consider to be the best racing movie ever made?
I don’t know that there has been a great movie about racing. The movies either have great stories and not so great racing, or the other way around. The really great personal story with great racing footage has yet to be accomplished. For a racing movie to be successful, the personalities of the characters who are integrated into it have to propel the story. If the personal characteristics of the people involved require that they do whatever it is they do, then the story will work.
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