By Gordon Kirby

Few have enjoyed careers in motor racing as expansive as Carl Haas’s: team owner, race promoter, racing car and parts salesman and longtime Chairman of the SCCA’s board. Haas is best known for Newman/Haas Racing, his very successful IndyCar team co-owned with Paul Newman, winner of eight CART IndyCar and ChampCar title between 1984 and 2007. But there was much more to Haas’s life in racing.

In the 1950s and ’60s Haas was a winning amateur SCCA racer, first with an MG-TD, then a Jaguar, a couple of Porsches and a Ferrari. From Chicago’s north side, Haas made his name buying and selling sports cars, eventually in 1960 starting Carl Haas Auto, selling Elva and Lola racing cars and Hewland gearboxes and parts. From the 1960s into the ’90s, Haas Auto established itself as the USA’s largest seller of racing cars and components, from Can-Am and Indy cars to Formula Fords, Atlantics, and Sports 2000s.

In 1968, after retiring from driving, Haas started running a team in the SCCA’s United States Road Racing Championship (USRRC), with Masten Gregory at the wheel. His team quickly became one of America’s best as he hired top drivers like Jackie Stewart, Brian Redman, Patrick Tambay, Alan Jones and Jacky Ickx. Between 1971-’80, Carl’s Lolas won 39 Can-Am and Formula 5000 races and seven straight championships. 

Despite his success, Carl was a shy fellow, a man of few words who was hard to get to know. He had little or no public image, entirely the opposite of Newman. They were surely one of the oddest couples in motor racing, if not in any sport. Newman was not only one of the world’s top movie stars but also an accomplished amateur sports car racer, winning numerous SCCA races and championships and some Trans-Ams. He was good enough to co-drive the second-placed Porsche 935 in the 1979 Le Mans 24 Hours and take third in the 1995 Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The racing marriage between Newman and Haas was consummated near the end of 1982. Mario Andretti drove the Newman/Haas Budweiser Lola in 1983, winning two races and finishing third in the CART IndyCar championship. The following year he won six races and the championship, as Newman/Haas began to write its way into the history books.

Mario was the team’s only driver and its driving force for six years before he was joined in 1989 by son Michael, who won Newman/Haas’s second CART championship in 1991. Formula 1 world champion Nigel Mansell drove for Newman/Haas in 1993 and ’94, taking the team’s third championship in ’93. Mario retired at the end of 1994 and Newman/Haas’s fourth championship came in 2002 with Cristiano da Matta, followed by four consecutive championships with Sebastien Bourdais from 2004 to 2007. When the team disbanded in 2012, Newman/Haas’s record included 107 IndyCar wins and 109 pole positions. 

Beyond all that, Haas promoted races at the Milwaukee Mile and Elkhart Lake and served a record four terms through the ‘80s and ‘90s as the SCCA’s Chairman of the Board. Carl was married to Berni in 1960, and they lived in Lake Forest near the shores of Lake Michigan. 

Carl Haas passed away in 2016, aged 87.

Kirby is one of the world’s most accomplished racing writers. He’s covered more than 1,000 races and written close to 20 books, including Boost! Roger Bailey’s Extraordinarily Diverse Motor Racing Career (2022) and The Green Flag: The Life and Times of Barry Green, Racer (2023).