Driving

Success 2017

CEOs of Airpark businesses catering to car collectors have their own auto obsessions. By Jimmy Magahern

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dam Corolla is obsessed with owning every car Paul Newman ever drove. The TV and podcasting personality, a major Newman fan who in 2015 wrote and directed the documentary Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman, is said to own the largest collection of cars built for the legendary actor, race car driver and salad oil magnate. And he’s determined to complete it, say those in the rarefied world of vintage car collecting. “He just paid $4.4 million for the 1979 Porsche 935 that Newman owned,” says

22 | Scottsdale Airpark News November 2017

Chris Hines, who, as president of Arrow Lane Racing and Restoration in the Scottsdale Airpark, specializes in restoring, fabricating and racing vintage race cars. Back in 2011, Hines and his friend Bob Hardison, president of Hardison/Downey Construction, purchased a 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Trans-Am race car owned by Newman and driven by his star driver, Scott Sharp, who together propelled the Newman-Sharp sports car racing team to multiple victories. Corolla heard about it and began putting in a few calls to Scottsdale. “Adam Corolla has been trying to buy

this car from Bob and I for the last six years,” says the goateed 54-year-old pro driver, who cut his teeth racing dirt cars and sprint cars in the ’80s and competed in NASCAR from 2000 to 2004. “But he’s not gonna get this one! We want to drive it and race it.” Hines says he raced the Newman-Sharp Olds at the Coronado Speed Week races in San Diego two years ago and won handily with the “stupid fast” car, which Arrow Lane fitted with a new transmission, among other period-correct modifications. For Hines and others into vintage sports car racing, though, it’s not only about the horsepower …continues on page 24