Hendrick remembers times spent with friend Newman

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Champion NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick called Paul Newman a friend.

And Saturday at Kansas Speedway, Hendrick, who perhaps more than anyone at his level in NASCAR has experienced more triumph and tragedy in the last two decades of his life than any five people combined, remembered Newman on many levels.

Paul Newman, at Indy in July 2007

Newman, 83, passed away at his home in Westport, Conn., on Friday after a battle with lung cancer -- a fight that Hendrick successfully shared as a leukemia survivor.

And Hendrick, who appreciated his late friend as a decorated actor before he met and grew closer to him thanks to their mutual passion for motorsports, could only smile when asked his best recollections of the man known in racing circles as "PLN."

"We were friends for a long time," Hendrick said. "He was just a terrific guy. He was an unbelievable talent on the screen but he was a neat human being and he did so much for kids and [other] people. And he never changed.

"He was just a super individual and a heck of a racecar driver. A lot of people don't realize how good he really was. If he had started at a younger age and really put his mind to it -- I think when he was 78 or 79 he ran like a 30-flat [average speed of 180 mph] at Charlotte in the heat one day in one of our cars and about blew me away."

That also impressed Hendrick's current champion, Jimmie Johnson.

"I've been out on numerous days where he has driven Cup cars," Johnson said. "Normally, Rick has a play day and puts a restrictor plate on the car and lets guys go out and drive around with half the horsepower. Numerous times, Paul [went] out on sticker tires, the plate off and run really quick laps. I was always so impressed with his driving ability and who he was as a person.

"You could see that spark in his eye. He had a true passion for motorsports in general -- I would say more IndyCar and road racing, because that is what he came from. He was a great friend of Rick's and knew a lot more than people probably realize about NASCAR racing."

"He was just a great guy and we're going to miss him," Hendrick said. "I tried to call him [a week or two ago] and he was just too sick. He's a guy that to be as famous as he was in the movies and to be as down to earth as he was with all human beings -- he was a pretty special person."

Hendrick wrinkled his face when asked for his best Newman story, smiling again and saying "Golly, I'll have to think a minute. All of 'em are good.

"He was always real serious about everything, so I think that the story I'll always remember is I called him one day and asked him for something for my charity auction. He sent it, and it was the cue stick he used in The Color of Money.

"And like a dummy, I put it up for auction. I didn't want to bid on it myself. I think it brought, like, $2,000 -- and I'd give anything to have that back. But he used to tell me some funny stories on Tom Cruise when Tom was real young and they were hanging together."

In addition to their racing passion, Newman and Hendrick shared a philanthropic bent, with Newman founding the Hole in the Wall family of camps for critically ill children, which includes the Petty family's Victory Junction Gang Camps.

"When you think about him," Hendrick said. "I think about all the functions at Victory Junction and all the great things he did -- just a great guy."

Hendrick's triumphs and tragedies have been well enough chronicled that there's no need to revisit them, but when he mentioned meeting Newman the tragic irony was that it was through a mutual friend, the racing actor's teammate, Jim Fitzgerald, who was killed at an SCCA Trans-Am race in St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1987.

"Yeah -- I was in awe of him [before I met him]," Hendrick recalled. "I remember Jim Fitzgerald was a friend of mine up in Greensboro [N.C.], who drove Nissans, and he and Paul were big buddies, and that's how I met Paul.

"And [Newman] drove my [Corvette] GTP car down at Road Atlanta and [I noticed] just how quiet and humble he was -- just like an everyday guy. And he always had time for his friends. I was in awe of him until I met him, and about three days into our friendship, he was just like a normal guy. (Continued)