Morning Wire - The Story Hollywood Never Told About Paul Newman

Episode Date: March 21, 2026

Actor Paul Newman built a second career far from Hollywood, trading red carpets for racetracks and spending more than three decades behind the wheel. In Winning, Adam Carolla explores how Newman discovered racing in midlife and developed into a championship driver and successful team owner. The film also shows how that passion shaped the rest of his life, from the people he surrounded himself with to the charity he gave back. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2693- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Quince - Go to https://Quince.com/WIRE for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.Shopify - Sign up for your $1-per-month trial and start selling today at https://Shopify.com/wire- - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacymorning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Technically, I mean, he was really a good driver. He wanted to be looked at as a driver, not as an Academy Award winner, but as a man who was involved with his heart and soul and racing. That was a scene from the film Winning the Racing Life of Paul Newman. The documentary, which was produced and directed by comedian Adam Carolla, and is now streaming on Daily Wire Plus, explores a major aspect of the iconic actor's life that few know much about. his 35-year car racing career. Despite only getting into racing in his 40s,

Newman went on to win four national championships as a driver and another eight as an owner. He became so passionate about it, in fact, that it nearly sidelined his acting career. In this episode, we sit down with Carolla to discuss the legacy of Newman and how racing shaped his legendary career. I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley, with Georgia Howe.

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with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash morningwire. Head over to Shopify.com slash morning wire. Again, that's Shopify.com slash morning wire. Joining us now is Adam Carolla, director and producer of winning the racing life of Paul Newman, a film that just landed on the Daily Wire platform.

Adam, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. So we're excited about having your film on our platform, of course, and I wanted to start by asking how the film started, What initially drew you to telling the story of Paul Newman? A lot of people know him for his acting career. You're focusing on a very different side of him here. Why were you so interested in this?

Well, I had collected Paul Newman race cars for a long time, and I race his race cars. And so I had this connection to him and racing. And I didn't give it much thought. I collected his cars for quite some time. I would restore them and race them and vintage racing events and things like that. And it just sort of dawned on me because I would talk to people and I'd go, I have Paul Newman race cars. And they'd go, you mean, you know, the popcorn guy or the salad dressing guy?

And I'd go, yeah, but he raced cars. That was his main thing, was racing cars. And no one knew the story. So I just thought, well, we should tell this story. I'll be honest. When you first said I started collecting his cars, I was thinking like matchbox versions of the cars that he had, his actual cars. Yeah, his actual cars.

I mean, they're all race cars, but some were cars that he owned outside of racing, and then others would just be cars from a season of racing, maybe two seasons that he raced. Amazing. In your view, how did racing shape his identity beyond, you know, fame in Hollywood? He seemed to appreciate it and enjoy it more than moving.

movie making at a certain point. He had a passion for it. He did it for, you know, pretty close to 40 years. And that's where his life was. Like at the track with the guys, with the crew, with the other racers and stuff like that. He liked it because I think of this sort of ultimate meritocracy of it. He probably felt that Hollywood had a lot of BS to it. and as you see, it was sort of beginning when he was talking about.

Now it's in full effect. But he just liked the idea of you come in first or you don't. And there's really no other way to describe racing. And so I think he was always attracted to it. Also, it's a little bit of a thing where once you get the bug, you get bit by that racing bug, it's really kind of all you want to do. And that's how he was the second half of his life. Yeah, and you mentioned second half of his life. He came to this late in his life relatively, right?

Yes, late in life relatively. Yeah, like 48, I think. I mean, it's not like football or basketball or something. It is something you can do later if you have a sort of skill and ability, a little bit of a gift, sort of a hand-eye coordination kind of a thing. Yeah, you can pick it up. And then he stayed with it all the way, all the way, to the end. And he had a real talent, correct? I mean, he won multiple championships. He won four national championships. He won in GT1 twice and then B-Sad-Sad-an, I'm sorry, C-Sad-Sad-an, and then D-Sad-A-Sad-an, like anyone listening would know what I was talking about when I say B-Sad-San or C-Sad-A. He won in smaller, you know, underpowered cars at the beginning, and then he won in the big turbocharge fast cars. toward the end, or actually about the middle of his racing career. And then he basically helmed a team when he stopped racing, when he wasn't racing, he was leading a team, correct?

He had an indie team with Carl Haas, and they won lots of championships. And so he won championships in indie as an owner. And he would have raced simultaneously. but not in indie. And he did sports car racing, road racing stuff, not indie car. So he probably would own the team and then also race. You know, at a certain point, he stopped running for the whole year.

You know, you've seen the F1 shows. You have to get the points and you have to run all the races. If you don't run all the races, you don't get points. And then you can't be the overall winner at the end of the season. but at a certain point he would just run Daytona, like the 24 hours of Daytona, he would run Sebring, the 12 hours of Sebring, he would just do various events around.

Did this ever threaten his Hollywood career? I mean, did he consider leaving, or did it get in a way of projects in a significant way for him? He kind of left in that he lived in the wilds of Connecticut. He didn't live in Sherman Oaks or in Encino or somewhere. He lived way up. in Connecticut, and he would do a film once a year, basically.

And that's what he would do. He didn't, you know, come out to L.A. much. He didn't live in Hollywood. He would do a film a year. They'd probably arrange it around his racing schedule. And that was, that's what he did for the last, I don't know, maybe 20, 25 years of his career, just basically a movie a year. So in a sense that he had sort of a balance,

I think a lot of actors struggle with this, and I'm sure you can speak directly to this, trying to figure out a balance between this Hollywood life and the life outside of that and sort of relatability to the average person doing something else beyond what's something that most people can't relate to. It seems like that with him. That's part of his appeal. Yeah, he didn't like the Hollywood life. He didn't like being bothered.

It was stated over and over when I was interviewing people who worked with him and raced with him and had a close relationship with him. And it was kind of interesting because it's a documentary that has Mario Andreddy and Robert Redford in it, which I don't think you're going to find too many documentaries with those two guys in it and everyone in between. So what was stated to me over and over again, and what it kind of appeared to be is he could be a little prickly if he was out to dinner and you wanted an autograph. But if you're at the track and you wanted to talk racing with him, he'd had all the time in the world.

So it kept reappearing to me that he was a regular dude at the track, but if you wanted to start talking about show business, he kind of got out of there. You talked about the interviews you conducted. Was there a particular part of making the film that stuck out to you or maybe a sequence or seen in the film that really lasted with you? There are many moments, and it's a very interesting film about him because I don't think people knew how obsessed with racing he was. but, you know, talking to his former team co-owner, Bob Sharp, they started a, they started Newman Sharp racing when Paul was racing. And explaining how the salad dressing got started was an interesting piece to it, that he would cook for everyone at the track.

And, you know, when they would go to these tracks, they would kind of, it was like gypsies coming to town. You know, if you go to Road Atlanta, you can't really stay in Atlanta. It's two hours away. You couldn't commute. You have to kind of pull in and live at the track for three or four days. The semi-trucks with the cars, the mechanics, the spares, and then RVs, where the drivers would stay and they would have dinner and lunch or whatever. And Paul would cook for everybody.

he would barbecue burgers and he would make his own salad dressing. And he would cook for the mechanics and the techs and all the people that were there working, you know, because he would have to qualify or practice or whatever, but he didn't have that much to do other than the race. So he would cook for everybody. And he basically made the salad dressing. And then at some point he told Bob Sharp, his team manager, or as co-owner, I want to sell this stuff and I want to give all the money to charity.

And he said, all right, and he had this idea about this long bottle and this sort of artisan thing. And Bob hooked him up with a guy who made salad dressing, he knew. And they just said, use one of our standard bottles. And it is. And they were just off and running. It's amazing. I mean, one of the most successful nonprofit companies like that I've ever seen. super influential and just kept diversifying. It's really remarkable. Yeah, one from that to the popcorn, I believe, and now they're doing dog biscuits and stuff, coffee and everything else. But it started off with him making salad dressing for the crew at the track. That's pretty great. So you obviously love cars. You've done some serious racing yourself. So what's your experience been like in that realm?

Well, I mean, I won the Toyota Grand Prix celebrity race one year, and then I won it in the pro division, the second year. And then I've done some professional racing, but mostly vintage racing. And people can look it up online if they're curious about it. But it's a thing where, I mean, I get what Paul's attraction was to it and that you don't really think about anything else while you're in the car other than. what you're doing in the car. So it's a different, it's a space where for that period of time, that's all you think about for that period of time, which it's hard to say that for different aspects of life, you know, like you can be talking to someone on the phone, but the TV's on and you're kind of looking at the TV and talking on the phone and people are texting.

This never happens to me. Yeah. Everybody, everybody is sort of has. half in every conversation. But this is a situation. For me, and I think Paul would say the same. When you get out of the car, if somebody said to you, what were you thinking about for the last hour? The answer would be, I have no idea other than driving. There was no thoughts of any, you know, whatever the trials and the tribulations,

the concerns, the history, the laments, like whatever that, whatever's rolling to your brain 24-7, even when you're asleep, you're kind of dreaming of something. When you're in the car, it's just the car. It's just whatever's ahead of you for that period of time. And I think Paul, you know, in his world, probably like the escapism of that. Paul Newman, for my generation, older generations, I mean, he's ubiquitous. Everyone knows who he is. In terms of the younger audience for a film like this, Daily Wire has a pretty big younger audience. What do you hope they take away from this film? I think it should be a kind of a universal, this is how you're supposed to conduct yourself on this planet. here's what men used to be and here's what society should be.

Like here's a guy. He's this, you know, the most famous actor in Hollywood, yet he chooses not to live in Hollywood. He chooses to hang out with sort of guys with grease under their fingernails who turn ranches. He kind of liked those types more than he liked the Hollywood types. He also realizes that he has an ability to act and create, and he is an artist, and he has to sort of, and that's what pays the bills, and he has to kind of honor that and not throw it away, but to pursue that as well, kind of a renaissance man, kind of well. And then also, obviously, a philanthropy. I mean, create something, you know, listen, he, that company's generated billions of dollars over, over the years.

That's money he could have had in his pocket. He never put a penny of it in his pocket. He used the money to open camps for kids with cancer, the hole in the wall camps that he would open and take the kids, you know, that were dying of cancer and bring them out. and have them go horseback riding and, you know, that kind of stuff. I mean, it's just, you just sort of look at it and you go, that's, that's how I would like to be remembered. That's, you might look at your son or your daughter and go, that's the way to go. Well, Newman's really a remarkable person on so many levels. Adam, thank you so much for joining us.

Sure. Enjoy the film. That was Adam Carolla talking about his film, winning the racing life of Paul Newman, streaming now on Daily Wire Plus. And this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Thank you.