Paul died yesterday at the age of 83.
Sad news, It deserves it own thread.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i-fmeaBYeK-NvdA5GJuRoKlnY12w
 

The world owes Mr. Newman a great deal for his selfless acts of charity.  And we race fans owe him much for having come into our world.  RIP Paul.

Yes, I too was saddened this morning when I logged on dsc and saw the news.  At the track, he always wanted to be a racer who happened to be an actor, not an actor who wanted to drive a race car.  He was not doing it as a novelty.  I think we did a pretty good job of respecting his wishes by usually treating him as a regular driver and not concentrating on his celebrity status.  I did have the good fortune of being in the 2005 Rolex 24 paddock very early on Thursday morning.  Hardly anyone was  there and he and EFR were chatting ( wearing their "Old Guys" hats).  I made a couple of close-up pictures of them and when they finished their conversation he struck up a 2 or 3 minute conversation with me as he was walking to his transporter, something he could not always do if there had been a crowd.  Just small talk about racing, neither of us mentioned his other career.  Something I will always remember.  Just glad i was at the right place at the right time.

He loved the sport and he loved people.  He was quite a man for being so willing to share his good fortune with the unfortunate.  He was a great actor but a much greater person.  That is how he should be remembered.

glenn nc

Thanks for everything, PLN.  :(  :(  :(

('can't find a pic of the '95 Rolex GTS winning "Nobody's Fool" 'tang)
 

Great pictures jim clark....Tough to loose one of the last of the real class acts in this sport and in life in general.  Paul was quite a humanitarian as well as actor and racer.  Thanks for all the great memories Paul...

I remember in 1988 when Tom Cruise and Paul were racing together in the SCCA double national at Pocono.  By that time we had renamed the SCCA "See Cruise Crash Again", so Tom mostly stayed in the motorhome.  Paul, however, pretended to be more of a civilian by riding his bike around and just ignoring all the female stares.  (I got my technique from him. Of course I mean the bike riding part).  He acted a lot like Patrick Dempsey does today - just a regular guy in driver's meetings and such.  It was nice to have such class around without having to mention it.  Those guys come across rarely.  Too bad.
Matt