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Legendary team owner Carl Haas dies at age 86
By Tony DiZinno
Jul 7, 2016
Carl Haas and actor Paul Newman on February 1, 1993 at the Phoenix International Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. (Photo by Steve Swope/Getty Images)
Carl Haas, one of the architects of one of North American open-wheel racing’s most successful teams, Newman/Haas Racing, has died at the age of 86. His Haas Auto business page confirmed he passed away on June 29 at his home.
Haas partnered with actor Paul Newman for what seemed a fantasy at the time in the early ’80s.
What seemed an odd couple – a successful businessman never without his trusty cigar and an actor who was bitten by the racing bug and preferred talking about it to any acting talk – turned their combined team into a legend in IndyCar after being Can-Am rivals a decade earlier.
Once CART dissolved and the Champ Car World Series briefly rose from its ashes, Newman/Haas reeled off a memorable four in a row title run with Sebastien Bourdais from 2004 (right) to 2007. Mike Lanigan, now a co-owner with Bobby Rahal and David Letterman, was a minority partner from 2007 through 2010.
But the team fell on relatively harder times once the Champ Car and IndyCar (then Indy Racing League) merger occurred in 2008.
Poised to be the best team in Champ Car once more, Newman/Haas was stuck learning the then-IndyCar equipment in 2008 even though both Graham Rahal and the late Justin Wilson won races that year. Rahal’s win at St. Petersburg was the first of his career and made him the youngest winner in series history; Wilson’s win at Detroit proved the last of its 107 career wins in open-wheel.
Rahal regularly overachieved in 2009 but lost sponsorship at year’s end, the team pressed on through 2010 primarily with Hideki Mutoh as its only driver while 2011 brought a brief resurgence with Oriol Servia an impressive fourth in the points and James Hinchcliffe rookie-of-the-year, 12th in points.
That year marked the end of the road, though, for the team as sponsorship was too hard to come by and the new Dallara DW12 never made it to the team.
Haas was much more than the team co-owner of Newman/Haas, though.
http://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2016/07/07/legendary-team-owner-carl-haas-dies-at-age-86/
By Tony DiZinno
Jul 7, 2016
Carl Haas and actor Paul Newman on February 1, 1993 at the Phoenix International Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. (Photo by Steve Swope/Getty Images)
Carl Haas, one of the architects of one of North American open-wheel racing’s most successful teams, Newman/Haas Racing, has died at the age of 86. His Haas Auto business page confirmed he passed away on June 29 at his home.
Haas partnered with actor Paul Newman for what seemed a fantasy at the time in the early ’80s.
What seemed an odd couple – a successful businessman never without his trusty cigar and an actor who was bitten by the racing bug and preferred talking about it to any acting talk – turned their combined team into a legend in IndyCar after being Can-Am rivals a decade earlier.
Once CART dissolved and the Champ Car World Series briefly rose from its ashes, Newman/Haas reeled off a memorable four in a row title run with Sebastien Bourdais from 2004 (right) to 2007. Mike Lanigan, now a co-owner with Bobby Rahal and David Letterman, was a minority partner from 2007 through 2010.
But the team fell on relatively harder times once the Champ Car and IndyCar (then Indy Racing League) merger occurred in 2008.
Poised to be the best team in Champ Car once more, Newman/Haas was stuck learning the then-IndyCar equipment in 2008 even though both Graham Rahal and the late Justin Wilson won races that year. Rahal’s win at St. Petersburg was the first of his career and made him the youngest winner in series history; Wilson’s win at Detroit proved the last of its 107 career wins in open-wheel.
Rahal regularly overachieved in 2009 but lost sponsorship at year’s end, the team pressed on through 2010 primarily with Hideki Mutoh as its only driver while 2011 brought a brief resurgence with Oriol Servia an impressive fourth in the points and James Hinchcliffe rookie-of-the-year, 12th in points.
That year marked the end of the road, though, for the team as sponsorship was too hard to come by and the new Dallara DW12 never made it to the team.
Haas was much more than the team co-owner of Newman/Haas, though.
http://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2016/07/07/legendary-team-owner-carl-haas-dies-at-age-86/
