Paul Newman had a strange request at the 1995 Daytona 24 Hours. The Oscar-winning actor and long-time racer had just turned 70 and was struggling to get in and out of the Ford Mustang he was driving in the US enduro. He was insistent that his team-mates manhandle him out of the car during pitstops to save vital seconds. The story reveals a lot about Newman’s attitude to his racing: he was fiercely competitive and wanted to be treated as an equal by team-mates and competitors alike.

“You had to climb in and out NASCAR-style with those cars,” recalls Tommy Kendall, the young hotshot in Roush Racing’s Daytona assault alongside Newman, NASCAR star Mark Martin and Mike Brockman in the GTS-1 class Mustang. “Paul felt like he was slowing up the driver changes and told us to grab him by the epaulettes and drag him out.

“I was thinking, he’s 70 years old and a national treasure, I can’t do that! But he was adamant. It showed how competitive he was, that he wasn’t there just to make up the numbers, and that he wanted to be treated as one of us.”