SIMPLY ONE OF US

Academy Award–winning actor Paul Newman built one of the most remarkable second careers in American motorsport. Over 35 years of racing, he earned four SCCA national championships, finished second overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, won at the 24 Hours of Daytona, and later became co-owner of one of the most successful teams in IndyCar and CART with Newman-Haas Racing.

Though often associated with Lime Rock and later friend Skip Barber, Newman’s racing passion began while preparing for his role in the 1969 film Winning. His transformation from actor to racer, however, happened in Connecticut. Like an actor learning his craft, Newman approached driving with patience and discipline. He bought a Datsun 510 and began spending Tuesdays at Lime Rock Park’s Test & Tune sessions, quietly turning laps not far from his home in Westport. Among the regulars, racing was assumed to be a celebrity hobby. But Newman kept coming back. Slowly and methodically, his lap times came down and the paddock took notice. The movie star was becoming a serious racer.

At Lime Rock, locals treated him like everyone else. That was exactly what he loved. Racing gave him a place where he could simply hang around the paddock and be one of the guys. Drivers protected him fiercely — no photographers, no press, no fans. Eventually he arranged his life so he could spend six months making movies and six months racing. He would drive up from Westport and treat Route 7 as his out lap, warming himself up on the twists along the Housatonic before turning into Lime Rock. The circuit became Paul Newman’s second home. “You get these five turns right,” he once said, “and you’ll know everything you need to know.”

Newman’s rise from actor to respected racer happened under the guidance of Bob Sharp Racing. In 1971, Bob Sharp introduced him to competitive driving and together they spent countless hours at Lime Rock developing Newman’s racecraft. By 1972, Newman was entering races as “P. L. Newman, Lime Rock, Conn.” in an effort to remain anonymous. Under Sharp’s guidance, Newman captured the 1979 SCCA C Production National Championship, winning 15 of 17 races and earning credibility as far more than a celebrity driver. That same year, alongside Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen, Newman finished second overall and won his class at Le Mans. It became one of the breakthrough seasons that changed how people viewed him inside racing circles. He was no longer Paul Newman the actor trying racing. He was Paul Newman the racer who happened to be famous.

Success followed for decades. In 1986, Newman led the final 21 laps to score his second and final Trans-Am victory. Fittingly, it happened at Lime Rock in Bob Sharp’s red, white and blue Nissan. In 1995, at age 70, Newman joined Mark Martin, Tommy Kendall and longtime friend Michael Brockman in a Jack Roush Ford Mustang at the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Their No. 70 Mustang won the GTS-1 class and finished third overall, making Newman the oldest driver to win a major sanctioned professional race — a distinction he still holds. Off the track, Newman’s influence continued to grow. In 1983, he partnered with Carl Haas to launch Newman-Haas Racing, which went on to win more than 100 races and eight championships with drivers including Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti, Nigel Mansell and Sébastien Bourdais.

Yet his connection to Lime Rock remained constant. In September 2007, at age 82, Newman won his final race at Lime Rock driving a 900-horsepower GT1 Corvette carrying his age on the door. “I’m happy to be home,” he said at the track that had taught him to drive. One year later, as his health declined, Lime Rock shut down for two hours so Newman could return for private farewell laps in that same Corvette. He died one month later.

Newman’s legacy reached far beyond racing. The idea for Newman’s Own came from Paul Newman and his friend and fellow racer Sam Posey and his artist wife Ellen. Paul had been making batches of his signature homemade salad dressing and gifting them to friends and neighbors. Their enthusiastic encouragement inspired him to turn the popular recipe into a brand. What started as a fun experiment in the early 1980s grew into a major national food company whose profits have all been donated to charity — now totaling over $600 million as of 2026.

In 1988 Newman opened the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp so children with serious illnesses could simply be kids and, in his words, “raise a little hell.” Newman often called this his greatest victory — greater than any he achieved on the racetrack.
When asked about legacy, Newman once said, “We are such spendthrifts with our lives. We need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”

Paul Newman put exponentially more back into the soil than he took out. Those who knew him through Lime Rock understood that best. Here, he wasn’t Paul Newman the movie star.

He was simply one of us.