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.

"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.