Maintaining the Family Business
When the late Steve McQueen was making his racing movie “Le Mans,” he insisted on doing his own driving, even in the dangerous scenes where his Porsche 917 was at racing speeds in tight quarters with the hottest Ford GT-40s and Ferrari 512s.
His 10-year-old son, Chad, kept bugging his father for a ride.
So one summer afternoon, strapped into the car while the film crew was setting up for some shots along the Mulsanne Straight, one of the world’s most famous speed traps, the actor lifted the flap on his Porsche and motioned to the wide-eyed youngster.
“He told me to jump in and I sat on his lap, and we headed down the Mulsanne Straight, just before Indy Corner,” Chad McQueen said. “I remember most the G-forces when he goosed the throttle. It was brutal.”
The experience had a lasting effect, addicting young McQueen to a life of speed.
This week McQueen, now 44, will be in a Ford-powered Crawford sports car, a 200-mph top-of-the-line Daytona prototype, competing in the Grand American 400-kilometer race at California Speedway. He will share the ride with Dominic Cicero II, an American who has been racing Formula Renaults in Europe.
“We’re a new team, we won’t be threatening the Ganassi cars on Sunday, but we could be running with the top five,” McQueen said.
Chip Ganassi’s cars are a pair of Lexus-Rileys, one with Scott Pruett and Luis Diaz sharing the drive, the other with Cort Wagner and Stefan Johansson. Pruett won last year, driving with Max Papis.
For a while, McQueen tried to balance his father’s two passions, acting and racing, but neither flourished.
“In the ‘80s, I was driving open-wheel race cars while I was starting my acting career, but I couldn’t decide what I wanted most, to act or race,” he said.
He quit racing to concentrate on the screen, moving into producing as well as acting. Two years ago, he switched again.
“I didn’t find acting fun anymore,” he said. “So I decided to give racing a total commitment, and I’m giving everything I have to be successful in the Grand-Am series. I’m training very hard, which at my age is very important. I take this as my last opportunity, and I’m very lucky to have it, so I’m giving it everything I have.”
In acting and racing, Chad has hovered on the outskirts of success, but has always been compared to his father, Steve, one of motion pictures’ superstars of the 1960s and ‘70s.
When he was 23, Chad attracted attention in the movie “Karate Kid,” playing Dutch, one of the picture’s bad guys.
Wrote one analyst on the film’s website, “His evil, mocking characterization of Dutch is utterly convincing and easily worthy of his heritage, so it’s a little surprising, and doubtless unlucky too, that he didn’t find himself in more big-budget, high-profile roles as the ‘80s progressed.”
He says he doesn’t mind the comparisons, either as actor or driver.
“I don’t know anything else,” he said. “I’ve always been Steve’s son, but I do my own thing. He was quick as a driver. So am I. To me it’s an honor to be compared with him.”
One chilly day last month at Willow Springs Raceway, McQueen, being filmed by the Discovery Channel for a documentary, was showing off one of the slate-gray Porsches his father drove in the Le Mans film.
“My dad loved this car,” he said. “I’ve got way more cars than I have garage space.
“Some of them were my father’s, like the ’58 he drove to Santa Barbara, taped over the headlights, raced it, then drove it back home. And I’ve got antique [motorcycles] in both [Malibu and Palm Springs] houses. That sometimes drives my wife crazy. One is a rare 1914 Indian that my father gave me.
“Right now, I just want to enjoy racing while I’m still young enough. Of course, compared to Paul Newman, I’m just a kid. He’s way cool, the way my dad was. We drove around the track at Daytona in a rental car, and it was a real thrill for me. What is he, 80 or something and still racing.”
Newman turned 80 on Jan. 25.
McQueen will be driving the Crawford-Ford in a Grand-Am race for only the second time at Fontana. The car, entered by Ted Spooner’s Portland-based Westernessee Racing team, was not ready for the season opener, the 24 Hours of Daytona, so it made its debut in the Grand Prix of Miami two weeks ago, finishing 19th among 47 starters.
“We were running eighth when we lost power steering and that made it tough to drive on the high banking at Homestead,” McQueen said. “Then I got a nudge in the rear and got shoved into the gravel pit. By the time I got going, we had lost a lap, but 19th was pretty good for a first outing. Like any new team, we’ve had our hiccups, but I feel more comfortable every time out.”
McQueen got the ride last year after qualifying his Swift CSR for the Sports Car Club of America national runoffs at Mid-Ohio.
“I knew I wouldn’t be competitive back there in my car, so I asked around about getting a Stohr prototype for the runoffs and I was referred to Spooner,” McQueen said.
“He said I could have one if I covered the cost of tires and damages. After I finished fourth, he asked if I’d like to run in the Grand-Am series this year with his team. We’d had great chemistry at Mid-Ohio so I jumped at the opportunity.”
One of McQueen’s goals is to drive in the Le Mans 24-hour, the race his father glorified in his film. He had a ride lined up two years ago before he broke his left leg in a motocross at L.A. County Raceway in Palmdale.
“I’ve got more screws in it than a hardware store,” he said with a wry grin.
“Le Mans is on the do list, no doubt about it.”