Paul Newman showed up a Ford factory test driver so bad, the man crashed

Leno sat down with legend Mario Andretti in an Italian restaurant to talk carbureted glory over plates of carbs. The race god shared how he once brought Paul Newman to a test session with Ford and Newman ran faster than the factory drivers. One embarassed Ford driver got in after Newman and, trying to save face, he pushed it hard. Too hard. He ended up binning it.

http://www.thedrive.com/a-list/3985/8-interesting-things-from-jay-lenos-garage-episode-6

Mario Andretti, a quick bio

He was born in Italy and didn’t emigrate to the States — from a post-World War II refugee camp — until he was fifteen. A scrawny kid with no money, patron, or mechanical skills, he clawed his way up from small-town bullrings with dogged persistence, irrational bravery, and incomprehensible talent. How good was he? He was series champion in his second Indy-car season, qualified on the pole in his first F1 grand prix, and was still winning races when he was fifty-three.

http://www.automobilemag.com/news/generation-of-heroes/

In honor of the 100th running of the Indy 500, Firestone offered fans the chance to race with one of the sport’s greatest champions, Mario Andretti.

The six-week online “Race Andretti” sweepstakes invited participants to outrace Mr. Andretti while performing everyday household tasks, the vacuum cord wrap, the fitted sheet fold, the light bulb replacement, the milk chug, the orange peel,




 The first challenge was to see how quickly participants can peel an orange.









One lucky racer won the chance to go to the 100th Running of the Indy 500 and meet Andretti. One weekly winner will receive a $500 Firestone Complete Auto Care gift card and a Firestone Racing hat signed by the racing legend himself.



http://leoburnett.us/chicago/article/firestone-raceandrettisweepstakes-gives-indycar-fans-chance-to-race-mario-andretti/
http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/20160425/NEWS/160429963/firestone-contest-pits-contestants-vs-andretti