Here Comes Paul Newman’s Fan Club, and Once Again . . . : The Joke Is on Cool Hand Luke
Since police sirens heralded their arrival, no one in the paddock at Road America could miss it last Sunday when a bus full of senior citizens lurched to a stop in front of the Nissan Trans-Am team encampment.
Out climbed about 30 women, most of them in their 70s, all wearing T-shirts testifying to their membership in the Paul Newman Fan Club. Except for one. Her T-shirt read: Paul Neumann Fan Club.
Actor-driver Paul Newman, who has mastered the fine art of practical joking in his 61 years, had been had--by a couple of kids in their 20s.
It was the latest episode in an ongoing war of words and pranks between Wally Dallenbach Jr., 23, and Chris Kneifel, 25, on one side, and the senior citizens of the Trans-Am, Nissan teammates Newman and Jim Fitzgerald, a cheery Irishman from Clemons, N.C., who admits to 64, on the other.
“We want Paul! We want Paul!” chanted the women, surrounding Newman’s red, white and blue race car.
Recruited by Dallenbach and Kneifel from a senior citizens’ weekend outing at the nearby Schwartz Hotel, the women were well rewarded.
Newman, still clad in his blue driving uniform, emerged from his motor home--something he rarely does at a race track except when he has to climb into his car--and applauded the grinning Dallenbach and Kneifel for their coup.
As the women--all members of the Prime Timers of South Chicago--descended on Newman, he smiled broadly, hugged as many of them as could get within reach and gave each a big kiss.
“Give me a kiss, too,” cried a woman from the back.
“Let her through,” Newman said. “I don’t want to miss anyone.”
Then, after having a group picture taken with the Prime Timers, he disappeared again into the team motor home.
“He said he had to go and wipe off all the lipstick before his wife shows up,” said Edna Wiggins, adding that she couldn’t wait to get back to South Chicago to tell her grandchildren that she had kissed Paul Newman.
If the women were thrilled, though, it was nothing to the way Dallenbach and Kneifel felt.
“After this, the race is going to be anticlimactic,” Kneifel said.
As a matter of fact, it was, to everyone except perhaps the winner, Pete Halsmer of Anaheim, who drove a Merkur to his first Trans-Am win.
The kids got the best of the oldsters on the track, though, too. Dallenbach finished second in a Camaro and Kneifel third in a Capri. Fitzgerald was fourth, but Newman dropped out toward the end with a blown tire.
“It’s great fun, it helps break up the tension and the monotony,” Newman said. “No one’s joking when the racing starts, though. Fitzy and I are all business, and so are they.”
The whole thing started a year ago when the baby boomers and the graybeards began chipping at one another in press conferences and interviews. Examples:
Newman: “We plan our race strategy for later in the race. We wait for the younger drivers to fade.”
Dallenbach: “We get under Paul’s skin and there’s plenty to get under when you’re his age.”
Fitzgerald: “They seem to have memorized only two words: Forest Lawn. After that, they run out of jokes.”
Kneifel: “Newman doesn’t really drive the car. He’s too old. The car is driven by satellite from Japan by two Kamikaze pilots.”
Dallenbach: “His eyes aren’t really blue. He just wears blue contacts.”
In time, the words escalated into a series of pranks.
“We all became good friends racing in the Trans-Am together and insulting each other with the media, and one thing led to another,” Kneifel said. “Paul has always been a big practical joker, but he’s too old to keep up with us.”
It started out rather mildly last year at Summit Point, W. Va., when the kids tacked a huge star to the side of a portable toilet in the infield and scrawled: “Paul Newman’s dressing room. Appointments only.”
Then, when it was time for Newman to leave the track that day, he found the wires crossed and the tires flattened on his rental car.
At season’s end, Dallenbach and Kneifel sent Newman and Fitzgerald certificates to Forest Lawn, an incident Newman referred to at the Academy Awards program when he accepted a special Oscar from Sally Field.
Dallenbach and Kneifel opened up their prank campaign this year at Sears Point when they got some Team Nissan stationery and prepared a fake press release.
It said: “World-class driver-turned-actor Paul Newman petitioned the SCCA, requesting a rules change to allow him a riding mechanic to control the booster knob in his Nissan 300ZX Turbo.”
Also in the phony release, Newman was quoted as saying: “I don’t know why this is such a big deal. We raced with riding mechanics when I first started competing.”
Said Newman on reading the bogus release: “That’s it. This is war.”
Turning to an aide, Tom Blattler, he said, “Hire me an airplane for Detroit.”
The Detroit Grand Prix was next on the Trans-Am schedule. Shortly before the race, a plane flew over the downtown course trailing a banner that read: “Chris and Wally, call Mommy.”
A few days before last Sunday’s race at Road America, Dallenbach and Kneifel were in Chicago to help promote the race on a TV program. They had brought matching walkers to present to Newman and Fitzgerald, who were also scheduled to appear on the show.
When the youngsters walked into the studio, however, Newman was not there, but Dallenbach noticed a beautiful woman sitting in the anteroom.
“Chris, we’ve been had,” Dallenbach said. “That young lady’s not here applying for a job.”
Sure enough, Newman had hired a Chicago model as his replacement--to walk on during the interview and present Wally and Chris with rattles, diapers and baby bottles.
Kneifel, a handsome 6-foot 6-inch bachelor from nearby Lake Forest, Ill., had the last laugh on Newman, however. He had the presence of mind to get the young woman’s phone number.
“Chris talked to her on his car phone all the way from Chicago to Elkhart Lake,” Dallenbach said. Then Kneifel sent Newman a card, thanking him for the introduction.
Even the crews are getting into the act. When Fitzgerald lost the turbocharger on his car during a qualifying race last Saturday, one of his own crewmen quipped: “You know how these old guys are. Jim was probably taking his nap and one of the young ones probably stole the turbo right out of the car on the false grid (where cars are lined up before moving onto the track).
The practical joking hasn’t hurt the foursome’s driving.
Dallenbach, whose father is the chief steward for CART Indy cars and a former race driver, won the Trans-Am championship last year in a Mercury Capri and is leading the series again this year in a Chevrolet Camaro. Kneifel, who drove in two Indy 500s before finding his height too big a disadvantage, is fourth behind Dallenbach and two drivers from Anaheim, Halsmer and Les Lindley.
Newman and Fitzgerald, although having trouble finishing races this season, finished 1-2 in last year’s SCCA national GT-1 road championship at Road Atlanta. Newman also won three straight pole positions in the Trans-Am.
This season, Newman led at Riverside before his car failed, but after suffering a wrist injury at Sears Point has not finished in the top 10.
The next Trans-Am is Aug. 16 at Lime Rock, Newman’s home course in Connecticut. Newman lives in Westport and Newman-Sharp Racing headquarters are in Danbury.
“The babies had better be looking over their shoulders,” Newman warned. “Something will happen when they least expect it.”
Kniefel, when apprised of the warning, was not impressed.
“We’re not through yet,” he said. “He and Fitzy are the ones who had better do the worrying.”
A few hours later, when the racing was over for the day, Newman was cooking hamburgers for his team on a grill out behind the team’s motor home. Fitzgerald was tossing the salad--with Newman’s dressing, of course, when Kneifel strolled by.
“Come on over and have a burger,” called Newman.
Kneifel asked for a medium rare, but he had a hard time eating it. He kept looking over his shoulder between bites.
