Matt David Newton

Newton...about as English as a name can get. Dutch and Scottish ancestors arrived in America, as well, long before the Revolutionary War.

My family made it to Bloomington, Indiana in the 1830s, after the United States Army forced the Native Americans out of their lands and the great Shawnee warrior Tecumseh was killed. Indiana had become a state in 1816 and the school that would become Indiana University was founded in 1820 on ground where my father graduated from high school.

Trains and cranes; my grandfathers, Newton and Marlin, maintained their livelihoods in these two occupations throughout their lives. My grandfather Blackburn Newton was the Bloomington Yardmaster for the Monon Railroad. My other grandfather, R.H. Marlin owned a construction company, along with cranes and heavy equipment rental. He moved his business to Indianapolis during the Depression and since my father Bill acted as his General Manager, that is where I was born in 1956, at Methodist Hospital; where Racing Drivers have always received care after accidents at the Indianapolis 500, since it is very close to the track.

We lived close to the Indianapolis Motor Speeday also, and some of the first sounds that I can remember were race car engines, coming across the cornfields, into our home on Melbourne Street.

The first song that I can remember hearing on the phonograph was Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto in C Minor, although my mother was more into Elvis. The Beatles played at the Indianapolis Coliseum in 1964, which, like all youngsters of that time, hit a cord with me, especially through George Harrison. Other musicians that influenced me then were Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds, Neil Young of the Buffalo Springfield, Judy Collins, and Cass Elliot of the Mamas & Papas.

Racing Drivers were my heros; A.J. Foyt, Jimmy Clark, Freddie Agabashian, Wilbur Shaw, Peter Depalo, Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti, Graham Hill, and Dan Gurney were people I met and people that I read about, during the 1960s. In the 1970s, I started working at various jobs in the track and I was able to meet such luminaries as Al Unser, Bobby Unser, Mark Donahue, Peter Revson, Jackie Ickx, Colin Chapman, Art Pollard, Parnelli Jones, Jack Brabham, Denny Hulme, James Gardner (racing driver & movie star), Tony Hulman (owner of IMS), Rick Mears and Roger Penske. These gentlemen still inspire me. I never met an Indianapolis 500 racing driver