Paul Newman might be best known as an Oscar-winning actor, but he was also a darn good racing driver. I met him when he was spending much of his time acting but I didn’t get a chance to interact with him. I knew him better later in life when cars were his main love. He didn’t really like to talk about show business but when you talked cars or racing his eyes lit up.

“Tell us how you got ready for this role.” He hated those kinds of questions. Being on a late-night talk show, I couldn’t ask him too much about racing because the people on the show couldn’t care less. So we’d come up with some sort of competition so the audience got to see Newman in action.

We would race - something, anything. Electric go-karts, sometimes outside, sometimes inside, and every time he would kick my ass. It was amazing - he just knew the natural line. I would practise for an hour and every time we raced he would beat me . . . even when he was 81. He’d get in the car and I’d look over and he’d have this steely-eyed look focusing down whatever sort of makeshift track we had made up.

We’d race the go-karts on linoleum floors - not the best racing surface - of the NBC studios. The halls are massive; they go a quarter to half a mile in each direction. It was a great deal of fun but I was never able to get near him. He would just drift through the corners and bring the rear end sliding round.

Then when I accused him of a false start, calling him a cheat, he sent me a cheque for something like $1.87 and a note saying: “Sorry for jumping the gun.” He still refused to sign it, though. He hated signing autographs. I don’t know how he paid his bills.

I love cars and I love to drive, but I’m not quite sure I have that killer instinct. But Paul definitely had it.

When Paul came to my garage he particularly liked the Gordon Murray cars, the Rocket and the McLaren F1. He also liked the Hudson Hornet because he was the voice of the Hudson Hornet in the Cars movie. He asked thoughtful questions and was polite. There was no entourage; he was in his eighties so he had someone with him but that was it. He walked through and said “Hi” to the guys who work in the garage.

Paul had some great cars but the one that made me smile was the VW Bug he had with a Porsche 911 engine in the back. It blew the doors off people at the lights and they could never work out why. It was much cooler than the Ferraris that other stars might have had.

He couldn’t have been nicer. If you didn’t know he was a star you’d just think he was a polite gentleman. He was also incredibly fit. I would think he had the stamina of a man half his age.

He was as natural at acting as racing. I think there are people that are just naturally gifted. I always remember something Laurence Olivier said. Some young actor was saying: “When I get ready for a role I do this, or for three days I live as this . . .” To which Olivier said: “Why don’t you try acting?” Paul was that kind of guy. I don’t think he was one of those actor-prepares type people. It came naturally to him and he just did it.

His movies are all classics. Butch Cassidy, The Sting, Winning. I think Winning was the movie that got him interested in racing. I recently had on the show Robert Wagner, who was the guy caught in the bedroom with Joanne Woodward, Newman’s real-life wife, in the movie.

That was the other thing about Newman - he might have been a class actor but he was not a Hollywood guy. He lived on the other coast, and in Connecticut, not in New York. He was married for 50 years.

My mantra has always been, make show business money and try to lead a normal life, and that’s what he did. I have no idea what he made or what he got paid for a film. You never heard about it. You just knew he must do pretty well because he was Newman.

He started those food companies that donate 100% of the profits to charity. He gave more than $200m to help children, but he was a modest guy. There was some stupid court case where somebody tried to sue him because they said it wasn’t fair that his company was a charity. But it always rolled off his back - he was a classic. Never complained, never explained. He was Paul Newman.

I knew he was sick and last weekend I turned on my computer and saw the news. Oh boy. It was sad. We lost a great actor and a great car guy. But I was sad, too, because in the back of my mind I always wanted to beat him in a race. Even a wheelchair race - something. Even though I knew he’d still win.

THIS RACING LIFE: 1 Newman filming the 1969 movie Winning 2 The actor celebrates finishing second in the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1979. He drove a Porsche 935 turbo 3 Newman performing one of his own stunts in Winning 4 At a race meeting in Florida in 1983 5 Newman with fellow actor Tom Cruise at a Champ car race at Long Beach, California, in 2004 6 The actor with Jean Todt, the former head of the Ferrari Formula One team

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