Interview with Race Car Driver Paul Goldsmith

In the last two issues of HPP, we interviewed Ray Nichels, the legendary crewchief and race car builder. In this issue and the next, we continue by interviewing the great Paul Goldsmith, one of stock car racing's winningest drivers. Since his retirement from racing, Mr. Goldsmith has kept a low profile, preferring to concentrate on his business ventures and pursue his love of flying. Now 78, he still logs over 600 hours a year as a pilot and remains very active in his businesses.

Paul Goldsmith was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, on October 2, 1925, the son of a riverboat captain. His father passed away when he was a teenager, and when his mother remarried, the family moved to St. Clair Shores, Michigan.

Goldsmith was a very successful motorcycle racer prior to racing cars. He started riding shortly after World War II. He soon discovered that he had the skills needed to be a competitive racer and took to the track.

Before retiring from motorcycle racing, Goldsmith won five American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) Nationals from 1952-1955, as well as the winning the '53 Daytona 200. He is one of the few men to ever compete in the Daytona 200, the Daytona 500, and the Indy 500 and the only racer who had ever won on the famed Daytona Beach course on a motorcycle and in a car. His Daytona win on four wheels came in 1958, the last year the beach course was run. He also qualified on the pole for that race.

After the January '63 GM Racing Ban, Ray Nichels switched from Pontiac to Chrysler, and Goldsmith continued his stock car racing career until his retirement in 1969.

We were lucky enough to catch up with Paul Goldsmith shortly after our interview with Ray Nichels. Like the Nichels interview, this will also be two-part series. Mr. Goldsmith had a lot to say about the old days and even some things about racing today. We are grateful to him and Mr. Nichels for agreeing to be interviewed for HPP.

HPP:You began your career as a motorcycle racer. How did you get into that area of competition?

Goldsmith:I bought a motorcycle, started playing around with it, and found out that I could ride it pretty well. The Harley dealer there in Detroit was named Earl Robinson. He watched me for a little while and then suggested that I race in an upcoming event in Marshall, Michigan. That was right after the war and it was one of the first AMA-sanctioned races. At that time, they started out in classes of Novice, Amateur, and Expert. As it turned out, they didn't have enough Experts for the race. Based on the way I was running, and my motorcycle, which Earl Robinson helped me develop, they moved me into the Expert class and I ended up, I believe, third in that race. From then on I was an Expert and I never got back in the Novice class or Amateur class. They put me in Expert and left me there.

HPP:Were you surprised you were chosen to be inducted in the AMA Hall of Fame in 1999?

Goldsmith:Yes, I had lost track of all that. It was quite a surprise.

HPP:How did you make the transition from motorcycle to auto racing?

Goldsmith:A friend of mine had a stock car he was building in Detroit. He didn't have many dollars to put in it, so I helped him out and built the engine for it. It was a Ford. Then he asked me if I'd drive it. I said, "Well, sure. I'm not racing a motorcycle that weekend. I'll drive it." It was a marque race, 250 miles at the fairgrounds in Detroit, Michigan, so I got in the race and won with that particular car. Dodge was in there and Oldsmobile, Ford--it was a pretty popular race. Some of the drivers from down South were up there, like Marvin Panch. I can remember him very well and others I can't recall now. Anyway, I ended up winning the race and the next one was about two or three years later.

HPP:How did you get together with Smokey Yunick?

Goldsmith:I got acquainted with him when I was down in Daytona for the motorcycle races in March. I used to hang out with Marshall Teague and got acquainted with Smokey Yunick, and he helped me with my motorcycle a little bit. I won the Daytona race in 1953 on that particular bike. Later, he asked me to start driving a stock car. That is what I was trying to get into all along, so we built a stock car for me and went up to Charlotte. It was a high-banked track and the second stock car race I had ever been in. I qualified the car on the pole, and outside of me were Curtis Turner, Joe Weatherly, and many of the other famous drivers. I got off and was running second behind Curtis Turner and did a roll--I looped a car and didn't slow down. I ended up second in the race, so I was pretty well known after that. From then on, I started driving stock cars for Smokey. I believe that was in 1957.

HPP:How many Indy 500s were you in?

Goldsmith:Golly, I think at Indianapolis I qualified for six of the races. The seventh one, my car wasn't too good and I turned it down--I wouldn't drive it. I ended up there in 1958. I was involved in a wreck driving Smokey Yunick's car. The following year, I was in Norm Demler's car with Ray Nichels as the mechanic and I got fifth. The next year I got third and from then on my cars weren't too good. I think the following year, after my third pace, I was running pretty good, but I lost the engine. The crankshaft broke or something in the engine.

HPP:It has been said that GM had "encouraged" you to leave motorcycle racing. Is that accurate and what was the reason?

Goldsmith:I was getting a lot of publicity riding that motorcycle and I was called downtown to have lunch with the officials at GM. They sort of encouraged me to get off of the motorcycles. They made me a pretty good offer and I couldn't refuse. (laughs) I went full time into cars, but I had been obligated to one more motorcyle race. The very next race that I went to run was in Columbus, Ohio, the charity "Newsy" race they called it. I won that on a motorcycle and that was the last I ever ran--on a motorcycle.

HPP:How did you get involved with Ray Nichels?

Goldsmith:I had been driving a little bit for Smokey Yunick when the phone rang one day--I was living in St. Clair Shores at the time--and it was Bunkie Knudsen on the other end of the line. He asked me if I'd come up and have lunch with him. I thought, "Man, this is something else. I'm getting to meet people like this!" So I went up. It was on a Monday, I think. I found his office and walked in, and Ray Nichels was sitting there. Bunkie had called him in also because he was building a few Pontiacs for the Daytona race before that. I believe it was in 1957, and he said that he'd like the two of us to team up to build a stock car and see what we could do with it. From then on, I was with Ray Nichels. We teamed up, and eventually, I moved to Indiana so I wouldn't be traveling back and forth from Detroit to Indiana, working on these race cars, doing all the test work, driving, and so on. So I met Nichels through Bunkie Knudsen. HPP:And the two of you were not just owner and driver; you were actually partners...

Goldsmith:That's true.

HPP:How did the experience with motorcycles and Indy cars help you as a driver of stock cars? Do you think there was anything that carried over? Goldsmith:Yes, motorcycles helped me quite a bit, with respect to handling. A motorcycle was pretty hard to make handle and get the most traction off of the racetrack. Transforming the feel to riding that motorcycle between you and that dirt, or the pavement in a road race, it gives you a sense of feel for handling that helped me an awful lot in the race cars. There weren't too many people who could beat me on a racetrack in a stock car.

HPP:Pontiac was heavily involved in the development of racing components with its Super Duty program. Did you have any contact or input with the engineers?

Goldsmith:Oh yeah. We were always talking to the engineers at Pontiac, which would be John DeLorean and some of the other fellows. I can't remember all of their names, but we were involved in different conferences with them on what we would build and what we thought would work well. Ray Nichels and I would build it and then we would test it on the racetrack and would see if it worked.

HPP:When you were racing Pontiacs, the Corporation treated PMD's racing efforts as a separate entity from Chevy's. For a while, Pontiac was on top and so was Nichels Engineering. What was it like being with such a winning carmaker and race team at the same time?

Goldsmith:Well, it was great. I don't know if you were aware of this, but in 1956, Pontiac was in sixth place in sales. When we started racing and doing well, like in 1958, sales picked up and they were heading toward third place. They made it to third behind Chevy and Ford in 1961. That was a big step for Pontiac and that was a lot of dollars for GM.

HPP:Back then, the Grand National stock cars were actual production-based machines, as opposed to today's purpose-built race cars. Do you believe racing cars that were actually in the showroom was better for the manufacturers than the arrangement they have now?

Goldsmith:Definitely. It would have been better if there was any way for NASCAR to keep it standard. When we started out, we'd take a passenger car and convert it into a race car. Today, they build the race car and use the hood and decklid as a standard production part. I think it costs them a tremendous amount of money today to build that type of a car. Somewhere down the road, I think it's going to hurt NASCAR a little bit, and they probably need to figure out how to get back into the standard production car if there is any possible way. The reason they want to do it that way is to get the cars a little more even, where they would perform pretty much evenly, and it would be up to the race teams how they win.

HPP:The 24-hour endurance races at Indy and Darlington with the two 421 SD Catalinas were true record-breaking performances and real-world tests at the same time. Unfortunately, tests like that aren't really promoted anymore. Why do you think that is the case?

Goldsmith:I think today there is much more publicity in the type of stock car racing that there is on television. I believe it lost a little bit of its interest in promotion of the car itself. Back when there were real "stock cars," I think it would have meant more in those days than today.

HPP:What were the most memorable aspects of the Pure Oil Economy runs with the '62 Pontiacs?

Goldsmith:Smokey Yunick and I ran the Pure Oil runs. There again, Pontiac didn't want to be finishing in the back or left out of it. That's why they had Smokey and I run the cars. We were mostly in the Catalinas. I don't know who drove the Tempests.

HPP:Was that a project for you separate from Nichels Engineering?

Goldsmith:Yes, that was. I can tell you a little story...You know Ford spent an awful lot of money in the Pure Oil Runs. They would run that particular competition and time all the stoplights, measure the grades, downhill, uphill. They had it pretty well worked out for their drivers to take advantage of all that. I used to get a hold of the sheet and we did the same thing. It really helped Smokey and I quite a bit! (laughs)

Next month, we will continue with our interview with Paul Goldsmith and find out what it was like behind the wheel of the famous #50 LeMans that beat the world's best sportscars and drivers to win the '63 Daytona 250 Challenge Cup.