Paul Newman was also a very influential person in the world of motorsports. A lot of people know him as an actor, but to many, he was a race car driver and team owner first, and an actor second. Mario Andretti gave him a wonderful tribute by telling incredible stories of their times together as team owner and driver and later on as best friends. I was sorry to hear of his loss, he was truly an amazing person, and one of few people amongst the ranks of peers that was truly a good person, down to the soul. He enjoyed many different aspects of racing, but his friends all say that it was road racing that was the closest to his heart.
You did the right thing Ralph. As I grew up in Nashville and my Dad was a salesman and manager in a very high end furniture store, being the people-person that my Dad was, he got to be very good friends with quite a few celebrity country singers. Some of the people that we were quite close with and often had over for dinner were Alan Jackson and Terri Clark. We met and associated with quite a few more, but those were the two that I really got to know the best. The reason that I brought this up, is that something that all of them often said, was that there favorite thing about Nashville was that everyone was laid back and respectful, and when they went places people would wave or say hello and leave them be, rather than bombarding them and ruining their dinner for autographs and such. Now when they went to places where there was a lot of tourists, of course it was different, but in the local restaurants and dives where its mostly locals, they could just enjoy the time there without having their privacy invaded. People just like to be able to enjoy their life sometimes like the rest of us, and what Ralph did probably meant more to Paul than anyone realized at the time.
