Surprise in-person autos!

[Kzoo]

Originally Posted by MVSNYC

Sidenote- where I did ask for a ton of autos, was at Nazareth Speedway in PA circa 1988-1994. my dad & I used to get pit passes for the IndyCar races, and got sigs of pretty much every top driver...Andretti, Foyt, Mears, Fittipaldi, Rahal, Unser, etc, etc...fun times.

Sounds very familiar, but my hunting grounds were Michigan International Speedway and the Detroit Grand Prix in the early to late 90's. I had a photographers pass at the Detroit GP for 4 years with all the access included. That's where Walter Payton signed a poster for me on a pretty relaxed Friday morning one year. I remember thinking he looked pretty thin and he was kind of quiet. Most Indy drivers at team owners are pretty approachable, even these days. The only guy that would never sign and would sneak out the back way in all my years of seeing him at races was Paul Newman.

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by Kzoo

Sounds very familiar, but my hunting grounds were Michigan International Speedway and the Detroit Grand Prix in the early to late 90's. I had a photographers pass at the Detroit GP for 4 years with all the access included. That's where Walter Payton signed a poster for me on a pretty relaxed Friday morning one year. I remember thinking he looked pretty thin and he was kind of quiet. Most Indy drivers at team owners are pretty approachable, even these days. The only guy that would never sign and would sneak out the back way in all my years of seeing him at races was Paul Newman.

The Newman/Haas Racing team's office is literally about 100 feet from the door of my work and, as I sit and type this I can see their building. The cool thing is anyone can stop in there and see the HUGE amount of trophies, race suits, two actual race cars and an original Leroy Neiman hanging in their very impressive lobby and I have done this many times. I knew a gentleman that was a accountant for the race team and he stated that Paul Newman came to the Christmas party one year and they were all under strict rules regarding the interractions they could have with him. Basically, the rules were to leave him alone and this went for ALL members of the team except for Carl Haas and his entourage.

The fact that Newman would slip out the back way at the tracks comes as zero surprise to me.

Wow..looking at the Wiki page for Carl Haas I guess I should get this man's autograph as he is even more impressive than I thought he was!

[RTK]

Originally Posted by whitehse

The Newman/Haas Racing team's office is literally about 100 feet from the door of my work and, as I sit and type this I can see their building. The cool thing is anyone can stop in there and see the HUGE amount of trophies, race suits, two actual race cars and an original Leroy Neiman hanging in their very impressive lobby and I have done this many times. I knew a gentleman that was a accountant for the race team and he stated that Paul Newman came to the Christmas party one year and they were all under strict rules regarding the interractions they could have with him. Basically, the rules were to leave him alone and this went for ALL members of the team except for Carl Haas and his entourage.

The fact that Newman would slip out the back way at the tracks comes as zero surprise to me.

Wow..looking at the Wiki page for Carl Haas I guess I should get this man's autograph as he is even more impressive than I thought he was!

It was pretty well known that PLN didn't sign autographs. It was common to see him around his race team. One morning, with no one around we crossed paths and I said "good morning" to him. He was actually a just a regular guy that enjoyed his racing. I heard a wonderful story about him at the Long Beach race dodging the Hollywood types and paparazzi and having beers with the crew guys out of sight from passersby after all the work was done. He also stopped by the campsite (at Road America) of a collection of internet racing guys I know to say Hi and thank us for supporting the series. He was the heart and soul of the CART/Champcar series. I'm sad it's gone.