Paul Newman & #33 at Sears Point

[matria]

Hello,

After reading about the passing of Paul Newman, I started thinking about the couple of times I had the opportunity to see him race at Sears Point Raceway, now Infineon Raceway in N. California. I remembered that I had taken some pictures but after almost 30 years, 2 kids, second marriage and 6 moves, who knows where they were. So after searching through box after box of pictures, I found a few and some of the negatives. Those without negatives were scanned and here are the pictures of some great memories.

Sears Point Intl. Raceway, during the 70’s and into the early 80’s was a quiet place with nothing around for miles. Bob Bondurant had his driving school there until he moved to S. Calif. In some of the pictures, you can see how close we were able to get to the course and having very few safety barriers. If you know the course, we were at Turn 3-4 where the old Turn 4 was a nasty Right hand downhill. There were no paved roads or parking areas around the course except for the pit area. Very primitive compared to now and not well attended. The pit areas were open and very friendly including Mr. Newman. Some of you that have raced for a while may know the owners of some of the other cars. The date on the back of the pictures says 1981.

Sorry about the quality and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Skip Dawson

[matria]

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[matria]

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[cunniwj]

Thanks for the memories, he was a very special person.

[conedodger]

I have a few from Brainerd International Raceway where he one his first race. I was a track medic so I could walk right up to him. I will dig them out and scan them...

Maybe Carl should archive these at ZHome now that he has passed.

[Carl Beck]

Hi Rob:

Great idea - will do - with permission from Skip.

Hi Skip:

Thanks for digging them out and scanning them - great memories to share.

Carl

[matria]

Carl,

No problem to use the photo's.

Skip

[Ron Carter]

Great Photos!! I was hoping to see a photo of my 510 as it raced at Sears around that time frame. Any chance you have other photos of B sedan 510's?

Thanks for the great photos!!

Ron

[conedodger]

I will get mine posted. Perhaps we could also post memories of the man.

While I was the track medic I got to roam the pit area after hours while the paying public was drinking heavily in the middle of the track. Paul Newman stayed in an RV that was provided by a local Brainerd dealer who would sell it after the race weekend as a "Paul Newman stayed here" RV. This particular event, Paul came out of his RV in the early evening and approached the car that was being driven by Willy T. Ribbs, one of his Trans Am contemporaries. He told Willy that he wanted to sponsor him and asked if $1000 was sufficient. Willy said yes and Paul wrote him a check for that amount. Paul then wrote "Drive Faster" backwards on the hood of the Ribbs car. Everyone smiled and laughed and Paul went back to his RV. Willy said he wouldn't be cashing that check because "Paul doesn't give autographs".

As I said, I have several pictures from that era. They were all from a 35mm film camera of course so I will have to digitize them.

[26th-Z]

How funny is this! A week or so ago, I decided to pull a box of old photographs out of the closet and look for historic Z shots. Back in those days, I shot slide film because it was cheap and we always had slide shows at garage gatherings. I was curious about what had survived the decades.

I don't have any pictures of PLN. He was just one of the guys at the races back then. I remember sitting with him at Daytona, eating a sandwich, and talking about the cars and the heat.

Anyhow, I fired up the scanner and tried my luck at scanning slides. This is my first attempt at scanning slides. Not very easy, I must say. The first five slides are from the 1973 American Road Race of Champions at Road Atlanta. Bob Sharp won the race in C production. The last slide is Bob at the 1971 Paul Whiteman Trophy Races in Daytona.

Enjoy

Edited December 11, 2008 by 26th-Z