Hendrick remembers times spent with friend Newman (cont'd)

"He invited me to go fishing and my first trip flats fishing was with him. We've done a lot of really neat things together but what would amaze me is he'd have friends around that were from all walks of life, and he never really hung with that Hollywood crowd much.

"He and [wife] Joanne [Woodward] were always just such a family group. If there was a real role model in this country for someone that gained a lot of popularity and did some pretty amazing things that could be as grounded as he was -- I've never seen it. He was just special."

As much as Hendrick's eyes were opened by Newman's human side, his competitive side, particularly in racing, was even more of a revelation.

They definitely shared an affinity for competition, and going fast. And while Newman reportedly drove a racecar at speed for the last time a scant month before his passing, Hendrick's time behind the wheel, including a couple Winston Cup races, ended about 13 years ago with his lone career Craftsman Truck Series start, at Heartland Park Topeka.

But in the process, he and Newman shared a good bit of seat time.

"We actually drove together back in, golly, I think it was '86, '87, '88," Hendrick said of time spent in IMSA Firestone Firehawk and SCCA Showroom Stock cars. "You know, I knew he raced, but until he got in some cars that I was familiar with -- I mean, he drove some [IMSA] GTO cars and he drove that GTP car that we had, and that Corvette in its day [beginning in 1985] was an awesome piece to have to handle -- and he could drive it, at Road Atlanta, where we all loved to play.

"And then when he got into a [stock] car for the first time, when we were at Daytona and then at Charlotte, I was amazed at the feedback and the car control. Really, he had an awesome amount of talent. You gotta remember; when I met him and we started driving, in 1985 he would have been 60 then -- so all of a sudden 59 or 60, doesn't feel that old."

Early in their friendship Newman was breaking his acting buddy Cruise into the racing scene after they'd collaborated on The Color of Money. Hendrick invited the pair to stop by Daytona International Speedway, where his No. 15 Busch Series car -- which won the 1987 Goody's 300 and finished second twice and fifth in the other three Daytona season openers between 1986 and 1989, driven by Geoffrey Bodine -- was being tested.

For someone who spent the greater portion of his life in front of the curtain, so to speak, many of Newman's racing exploits were spent behind the scenes, and so it was on this day when Newman and Cruise quietly arrived at the superspeedway, and proceeded to share stints behind the wheel at speeds in the mid-180 mph range, at a time when the Goody's 300 pole speed was a little over 190 mph.

Hendrick, who also took some laps, was chuckling by the time he finished that tale.

"To run faster than he did, I had to put on a 750 [CFM] carburetor and not tell him about it," Hendrick said of the piece with bigger throttle bores than normal. "I remember it was kind of hard to go out and eat dinner with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, and not get noticed, you know [chuckling]?

"I did that a lot of times, in Daytona and in Atlanta and at lots of places that we ran SCCA Showroom Stock. But people always respected him. And about that time was when Cruise was so popular with Top Gun and everything. And then they did the movie [The Color of Money] together -- and right after that was when we drove some; so it was at the height of their popularity together."

Not surprisingly, Hendrick said Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was probably his favorite Newman flick, but in a virtual dead heat.

"And I think The Color of Money because of he and Tom both being in it," Hendrick said. "We went up to Teterboro [N.J., Airport]to drop, I think it was Tom off -- but it may have been Paul -- and there was a pool table in the FBO [Fixed Base Operation] so it was on, then -- because those two guys were very competitive [laughing].

"But it's a lot of fun memories, there. I've got a picture of when we were in Daytona together, and we stayed in touch. He loved to fish and I love to fish. We promised ourselves that we were gonna do more of it. And we'd come to something at Victory Junction or Boggy Creek or one of those deals and we'd [talk about it].

"But you get so busy in life that you don't do some of the things that you really enjoy."

Hendrick said he'd last seen Newman "about six months ago. He was a real private person in his personal life, but he was a really good man."

The Associated Press and Performance Racing Network contributed to this report.