I'd always thought that I'm not as good a driver as I am capable of figuring out how to make the car the quickest, he once said. this email address already registerd with us. David Donohue drives his dad's 1972 Indy 500-winning car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2016. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. At about 09h45 he left the pits again for another testing run. Don Cox would later join the team in 1969 after working as an engineer for General Motors. Today, he works for Porsche Cars North America as client relationship manager. Prof. Fritz Heppner, head of the neurosurgical department at Graz Hospital, said irreparable damage had been done to that part of the brain that controls involuntary body functions. "We had stop watches back then, with a timing chart taped on the back that converted seconds to miles per hour, but 180mph didn't exist on the timing chart." 12 His true passion was racing. He tried to be a team manager; that didnt work. In 1961, Donohue bought the Elva and battled with another young racing star, Peter Revson, for the SCCA divisional championship. Brian Redman drove it once in 1974, and that was it for the car as far as Penske campaigning it. No one piece tells you what the puzzle is. The four-race schedule consisted of three races at Riverside and a finale on Daytonas road course. Donohue (along with Penske) were pioneers in many rights, some as notable as the use of a skidpad as a tool for developing and perfecting race car suspension designs and setups. He finished the race in his McLaren-Offy setting a record speed of over 162mph (261km/h),[16] which stood for twelve years. Donohues father was a patent attorney. He won three times in IndyCar competition and won the 1973 NASCAR Cup Series race at Riverside Raceway in Riverside, California, driving an AMC Matador. The supposition is that a support post from one of the advertising signs caught Donohue's helmet. Directing other drivers, making suggestions, helping mechanicseven sweeping up around the garagewere not enough. It includes information and additional photography that was not available before the first edition was published. ), (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap). In auto racing, though, even thinking man's drivers can get killed by punctured tires. ), entered April 29, 2014 in Albany County, which granted a motion by defendants James Finck and Tougher Industries Enterprises, LLC for summary judgment dismissing the complaint against them. Then, in 1977 a chicane, named Hella-Licht, was installed at that point of the track, bringing the length of the circuit to 5.941 kilometers.Mark Neary Donohue, Jr. was survived by his second wife Eden, the couple had only recently married; and his two sons from his previous marriage, Michael and David. Some of his most notable accomplishments included being the Indy 500 rookie-of-the-year, Trans AM champion and a winner in The 24 Hours of Daytona all in 1969. The highlight of his entire career was winning the . Revson's death made it almost inevitable that Donohue would come out of retirement. He took the lot to Lime Rock, Conn., and finished fourth in a sports car race. Donohue was able to obtain two fifth places in the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp and in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, but scored five DNF's in the first 11 races of the season.A few days before going to Zeltweg for the Austrian Grand Prix, scheduled to be contested on 17 August 1975, Penske and Porsche attempted to set the world closed-course record. Mark returned [a year later] because he realized he wasnt good at anything else. The victory was the first for Penske in the Indy 500. Donohue, 38, Dead Of Racing Injuries - The New York Times The real engineers were Don Cox [from GM] and Helmut Flegl [from Porsche]. It was largely Flegl who created the Porsche 917-30, whose 1100 horsepower, the SCCA bitched, was killing the Can-Am series. His Porsche 917-30 was so dominant it was called the Can-Am Killer, as he won seven of eight races and the 1973 Can-Am Championship. Most of Donohues wins (28) came in Trans-Am, the United States Road Racing Championship (12) and Can-Am (10). What can be better in life, a better ideal?, In 1966, Penske told him: Try it for a year, you're still a young man, and if it doesn't work out you can always go back to engineering.. What we learned from Friday practice at F1's 2023 Bahrain GP. ', On Wednesday morning, August 20, 1975, the phone rang in my dingy beige apartment in Burlington, Ontario. There was also Earl McMullen and Bill Cox, who worked for the teams sponsor, Sun Oil. We started to look at data Mark was an engineer at Brown (University), and that was certainly part of it, but we were committed. He said, Just follow me. Following Mark Donohue on a two-lane road with no street lights was an exercise. But he was still, a great driver. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. This account has been suspended due to strange activity. Donohue was hit in the head by a fence post and knocked unconscious. Carrying the number 66, Donohue qualified 13 th for the California 500, but a burned piston ended his day early, on lap eight. First to go was his marriage, says Argetsinger. 12 and current Alltel decals) at the fall Rockingham, North Carolina, race. [citation needed] Hansgen arranged for Donohue to become his teammate in 1965, co-driving a Ferrari 275 at the 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race,[2] which they finished in 11th place. [2], At Hansgen's funeral, Roger Penske spoke to Donohue about driving for him. We will get back to you in 24 hours. In the 1971 Indianapolis 500, Donohue started second and led 52 of the first 66 laps before breaking a gearbox. Police have not yet released his identity. No, I never worried about the dangers of racing, he said in March, 1974, in New York while being honored at a luncheon. [5][19] Donohue is buried at St. Teresa Cemetery in Summit, New Jersey. A Montgomery County man who crashed his car and fled from the wreck, leaving three of his friends dead or dying, on Thursday was sentenced . I always said driving wasn't really a dangerous situation. He won three national sports car championships as an amateur before he turned professional in 1966, first as the late Walt Hansgen's codriver, then for the rest of his life with Penske. By 1973, the "Captain Nice" nickname he had earned earlier in his career was being supplanted by the nickname "Dark Monohue". His first marriage ended in divorce and some friends blamed racing. He turned his last race, the first International Race of Champions finalin which top driver from all forms of racing competed into an easy victory Feb. 15, 1974, and then concentrated on his new duties as president of Penske Racing. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Worse yet, when Donohue wasnt racing, he was working 18- to 20-hour days at the teams small race shop, located in a garage in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, and later, a more modern facility in nearby Reading. His car was almost inexplicably fast, so much so that, according to Donohues book The Unfair Advantage, race winner Al Unser sought him out after the race and said: Look, weve been competitors for a long time, and you have your way of doing things and I have mine, but when you come here and run six miles an hour faster than everyone else I gotta shake your hand.. In 2003, in commemoration of Penske Racing's 50th NASCAR win, Nextel Cup driver Ryan Newman drove a Dodge Intrepid painted to resemble Donohue's 1973 AMC (with a No. David followed his father into sports car racing for Porsche. Mark Neary Donohue Jr. (March 18, 1937 August 19, 1975), nicknamed "Captain Nice,"[1][2] and later "Dark Monohue,"[2] was an American race car driver and engineer known for his ability to set up his own race car as well as driving it to victories.[3][4][5][6]. Racing Heroes - Mark Donohue | Hemmings The hotrod phenomenon came East from California and caught me up in it, he once explained. Foyt and Emerson Fittipaldi, among others tangible proof that, stock-car equipment being even, Donohue was a world beater. The car did a series of cartwheels, and Donohue broke both legs. There was little question then that Donohue, who would testdrive the new car and help supervise its development, would come out of retirement. They made four NASCAR Cup Series starts in 1972 and while they displayed commendable speed Donohue never qualified worse than 11th, including a third-place start at Riverside they failed to finish three of the four races and earned a best finish of 15th at Atlanta. Seeing another man driving your car, a car you know so well. It became official last September. His instant F1 success led to no further involvement in the category, Mark instead concentrating on his blossoming Indy career, winning the big one in 1972. . Though he walked away from the resulting crash, he fell into a coma the next day and, shortly after, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. One track marshal was killed by the crash and another seriousy injured. In 69 Mark repeated his Trans-Am championship, winning six of 12. I was at Lime Rock, Connecticut, Donohue said. He is known for Formula 1 (1950) and The Trans-Am Challenge (1972). Motorist killed in Montgomery County crash, police say Mark Donohue Fatal Crash (Alternate Footage) - video Dailymotion "They posted me to the infield, taking care of people who got too much sun or had too much to drink," Olvey said. Mark was an engineer from Brown University, Penske said. When he came out, he was a different person. He won the Can Am championship in 197, the TransAm title in 1968, 1969 and 1971. . It is there at Saint Teresa Cemetery and Mausoleum that Donohue is buried alongside his mother and father. Mark Donohue (1937-1975) - Find a Grave Memorial I get all of these tiny little stories from everybody where my dad grabbed this guy as a kid and sat him in the car -- and that motivated him enough to go to engineering school. It was at Hangsens funeral that Roger Penske approached Donohue to drive for him. I did everything I could to keep up. J. Funk and J. L. Mercedes: New W14 sidepod design wont copy F1 rivals, FIA grants Hamilton medical exemption to wear nose studs, FIA grants Hamilton medical exemption to wear nose studs Mark Donohue drove the Porsche 917-30 Can-Am after making various aerodynamic and suspension modifications. In February of '65 Donohue was named as comptroller at Griffith Motors but was soon spirited away from Griffith by Roger Penske early in 1966. The singleseat, opencockpit Formula One cars used in grand prix racing have been called torpedoes. Donohues dad was often racing in the United States or Canada for a fledgling operation called Penske Racing. They discovered that using a drag racing trick of dipping a car in an acid bath would eat away small amounts of metal, which in turn made the car incrementally lighter, and allowed it to be driven faster. As Roger Penske said, Mark wasnt flashy, but he put the numbers on the board.. It became official last September. In 1974, he quit driving and became president of Penske Racing. Donohue raced in several NASCAR Grand American races and a NASCAR pony car division from 1968 until 1971. In addition, the horrific events at the 1973 Indianapolis 500 and the subsequent death of his friend, Swede Savage, pushed him to quit. But his thinking man's approach to racing, while successful on the track, was difficult off. I dont remember him changing a bit.. How famous was Mark . Mark Donohue. Portrait of American racing driver Mark Donohue as he poses with his car after winning the Indianapolis 500 race, Speedway, Indiana, May 1972. . That put Bettenhausen in the lead before a pinhole leak in the Bettenhausen cars cooling system with 12 laps to go put Donohue in the lead and the first of Penske Racings record 16 Indy 500 victories. It is core to the myth of Mark that he was just an okay driver but a genius engineer. They were just forging ahead, David Donohue recalled. You can go away and the void that you leave gets filled quickly, but when you come back, you are greeted with open arms. Search instead in Creative? Mark Donohue and Roger Penske had planned an hard assault to the 1975 Formula 1 Championship, but the season soon turned out to be difficult. I realized then that if I wanted to do better in this business I had to spend more time on my car, he said. Since his remarriage eight months ago, those same friends found Donohue relaxed and cheerful, something he had not been while retired. On his second lap, while at about 260 km/h a rear tire of his March 751 - Ford suddenly blew, the out of control car went through the fence for about 180 feet, over a guard-rail and into a ravine. Donohue demolished Al Unser's IMS track record of 170.221mph with a 181.2mph practice lap on May 12, a day that still makes Penske chuckle. It served as the first NASCAR victory for aspiring team owner Roger Penske, a proverbial snowball sent rolling down a path thatd alter the entire American auto racing landscape. David Donohue is proof positive that apples dont fall far from the tree. Donohue won. Watts.) To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. He died two days later. Nine weeks before the Le Mans race, while testing a GT40 Mk II in the rain, Donohue's friend and former teammate Walt Hansgen lost control and crashed his car into an escape road barrier, suffering fatal injuries. He went on to assist TVR's David Hives in designing the Series 400 Griffith and then working on the ill-fated Bob Cumberford-designed, Intermeccanica-(Torino, Italy) produced Series 600 Griffith. Donohue co-drove in the No. It would have really been great watching those two together in the later years if it had gotten that far. A friend once described riding in Donohue's Porsche 911 as a 'Wall of Death thing most of the time. They continued to use the "lightweight" car in 1968, at the Sebring 12-hour race. The Penske grand prix car proved a disappointment and Donohue's best finish this season was a fifth place in the British Grand Prix. [4] He was survived by his wife and two sons from his first marriage. The thing that impressed me most about Mark is how serious he was about racing, vehicle preparation and all of the things that we know that contribute to success, Czarnecki said. This was not merely a celebrity autobiography, but a detailed, step-by-step record of the engineering approach he took to getting the absolutely highest performance from every car he drove, always looking for that elusive "unfair advantage". I didnt get to know my father very well because he passed away when I was young, but racing has given him back to me. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker. He was just 22 years old when he had won his first race, a local hill climb. He was hit on the side of his helmet with debris as his car, which had suffered a punctured tire, went out of control in prerace practice and crashed through four rows of wire catchfences and some billboards along the Oesterreichring race course. Mark Donohue's Fatal Crash - sterreichring 1975 (42 years ago) Humphrey The Auto Racing Fan 1989 2.38K subscribers Subscribe 54 Save 13K views 5 years ago Notice Age-restricted video. Please try again. U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current. And Mark Donohue couldn't live with retirement. Has Alonso made the right choice gambling on Aston Martin F1? By the end of the crash, the front end of the car was missing, and Mark's legs were fully outside the car, with his only injury . He went over 180 miles per hour for the first time and it wasnt on the chart, so nobody knew how fast he went. He had been a national amateur champion and the Sports Car Club of America driver of the year in 1965. Mark Donohue races to the win at the the 1972 Indy 500. An experienced race driver named Walt Hansgen (who worked for Inskip Motors in New York & Rhode Island) recognized Donohue's ability[2] and befriended him, eventually providing an MGB (through Inskip Motors in Providence, RI and prepped by their race shop Competition Engineering)[8] for Donohue to race at the 1964 Bridgehampton The front of the car was torn away, leaving Donohue, still strapped to his safety seat, with his legs dangling outside the car. That took a couple of years. He was a winner at the 24 Hours of Daytona and in stock cars. Or, signing some autographs. A lot of the things we saw on todays cars are things Mark thought about and brought to the surface., Mark Donohue stood out more ways than one when he was dominating the Can Am Series in the early. The driver must accept the risks involved, which I didand I spent my time in the hospital as a result.. He was good in Trans-Am, Indy cars, Can-Am and Formula One. He was just that way. Mark Donohue was an enigma. Mark Robert Bonhag, 56, of the Highland, Md., area was driving north on New Hampshire Avenue in the . Driver who fled fatal Olney crash gets 20-year sentence He thinks the same way. [9] That year, Donohue also won two divisional championships: in SCCA B Class in a GT350 and in SCCA Formula C in a Lotus 20B. David followed his father into sports car racing for Porsche. That sense of realism often hits Mark Donohues son. They sent the legal weight car through the technical inspection with the number 15 and again with the number 16 on it. During their enormous success in Trans-Am, Penske and Donohue would begin to experiment with their Camaros. Mark Donohue at the 1971 Canadian Grand Prix, Today, we have specialists, but Mark was such a versatile guy, he drove everything for us.. The real Mark came out.. That is something I would have never had if I didnt go to races. It was. Its as if his father is in his presence. He died on August 19, 1975 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He died in 1975 a day after a crash during practice for the Austrian Grand Prix. A track marshal was killed by debris from the accident, but Donohue did not appear to be injured significantly. On 09 August he reached an average speed around the 2.66 mile high-banked oval, of 221.120 mi/h (about 355 km/h), this has been a World record for several years.Donohue and the Penske team then made the trip to Austria. Unfair Advantages: The Life and Times of Mark Donohue I can hardly wait to get back to work with our car, he said. The winner of the 1972 Indianapolis 500 and the Can Am in l973. A 25-year-old passenger in the Infiniti, a woman from Olney, was seriously hurt and taken to the hospital. He was really the first person that I knew in racing that not only had the driving skills, but also the technical knowledge. On his second lap he approached the Vst-Hgel very fast right-hander at the end of the main straight when, at about 162 mi/h (260 km/h), a rear tyre of his March 751-Ford Cosworth suddenly blew up. The bungalow is where team manager Chuck Cantwell and the teams public relations director Dan Luginbuhl worked along with secretary Maryann ODonnell. I used to hate riding with him to the airport, said Don Cox, a former chief engineer at Penske Racing when Donohue was with the team. Our car experts choose every product we feature. Donohue was about to have his race victory taken away for cheating, but Roger Penske stepped in. Mark contracted polio when he was 6, but he fully recovered. Its a goal he had and a goal he checked off. [11] Earlier that year, co-driving with Hansgen, Donohue finished third at the 24 Hours of Daytona and second at the 12 Hours of Sebring. Driver who fled fatal Olney crash gets 20-year sentence. Donohue was obsessed with finding any possible advantage through engineering -- and loopholes in the rules. Donohue chronicled his entire racing career in the book, The Unfair Advantage (co-written with noted motorsports and engineering journalist Paul Van Valkenburgh). The practice sessions were marred by serious accidents; Brian Henton destroyed his Lotus after sliding in an oil patch, and Wilson Fittipaldi broke his hand when crashing at the Rindt Kurve. Seeing it in real life when you come into the museum here, I know one thing -- I fit in it really well. Try a week on us. For Donohue, there was little time to grieve, as his own Le Mans debut was looming. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. "Going down the back straightaway, the wing, which produced a tremendous amount of downforce at high speeds, came off the back of the car," Donohue claimed. He needed something he could do well., Alas, Penske Racings first F1 car, the PC1, was so mediocre that Donohue persuaded Penske to replace it with a customers March 751, a curious crack in the myth that was Mark. Jayski's Mark Donohue Tribute - Jayski's NASCAR Silly Season Site Donohue raced in seven of the eight races that year, winning six (at Las Vegas, Riverside, Bridgehampton, Watkins Glen, Pacific Raceways, and Mid-Ohio) and finishing third at the Laguna Seca Raceway round behind Lothar Motschenbacher and Mike Goth. In search of Team Penske racing legend Mark Donohue - Autoweek Forgot password? There were victories in stockcar racing against Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and the other Southern drivers; in the TransAm series, where three times he captured the season title competing against the best sedans the Detroit factories could produce; in the 24 hours of Daytona, against the best international sports cars endurance pilots, and in the initital Pocono 500 in 1971 against A. J. Foyt, Bobby and Al Unser, Mario Andretti and the other stars from the United States Auto Club championship circuit. Walt Hangsen, a former SCCA champion and road racing veteran who even make a pair of F1 starts, helped Donohue get a ride in John Mecoms Ferrari 250LM at Sebring in 1965. In 1970 new Javelin team owner Roger Penske and driver Mark Donohue would breathe new life into the AMC team. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. [10], In 1966, thanks to his friendship with Hansgen, word quickly spread to the Ford Motor Company about the young driver. In all, there were 57 major victories and more than $1million in purses for this pleasant, intelligent man who gave up a career in mechanical engineering because racing is what he wanted to do. And when he thought he had done enough, he quit. His body will be flown to the United States tomorrow and the funeral will take place Monday in Summit, N. J., where Donohue grew up and first got caught up in the hotrod phenomenon. A Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated at 1 P.M. in St. Teresa's Church. Mark Donohue and Roger Penske during a break in the Indy-car action at Michigan International Speedway n 1974. In 1974, Mark Donohue took a year off from driving at the height of his racing career to write "The Unfair Advantage," a candid and revealing book about his journey through the world of auto racing -- from amateur SCCA races in his own '57 Corvette to winning the Indy 500 in Roger Penske's McLaren M16. At the Austrian Grand Prix, Donohue's career, along with Roger Penske's Formula One aspirations, took a tragic turn. 1975 Camaro Racemark GT Bob Bailey. When Penske decided late to enter Formula One full time, Donohue had a difficult decision to make. Maryland DUI Driver Who Killed 3 Gets More Prison Time for Trying to He joined Roger Penske, a former sports car rival who had set up his own team, the following year as a fulltime professional. I know their first conversation after the race, he didnt say (that he had won). He died two days later. Please try again. Not true. The only person to beat Donohue was his former Penske Trans-Am teammate, George Follmer. Donohue took three victories and the series championship, besting the likes of Petty, Allison, David Pearson, A.J. Mark Donohue. Mark Donohue Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images "Donohue is no angel out there on the track Parnelli Jones", "Donohue, on the Way Out, Views Things From Top; Calendar of Motor Sports", "1965 Sebring 12-Hour Grand Prix of Endurance Race Profile", "1966 24 Hours of Le Mans Results and Competitors", "1967 24 Hours of Le Mans Results and Competitors", "Mark Donohue Named '500' Rookie of Year", "Mark Donohue set Indy speed record in 1972", "1973 Winston Western 500: Donohue Dominates", "Hall of Fame Members (Mark Donohue Jr.)", "Mark Donohue, Sports Cars, Class of 1990", Mark Donohue's IROC and NASCAR stats at racing-reference.info, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mark_Donohue&oldid=1136103335, Brown University School of Engineering alumni, International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees, SCCA National Championship Runoffs winners, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2012, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2014, Pages using small with an empty input parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, run as the Daytona 3 Hour Continental (196263), 24 Hours of Daytona (196671/ 1973/ 1975present), This page was last edited on 28 January 2023, at 19:22. Donohue raced in the inaugural IROC series in 197374, racing identical, specially-prepared Porsche RSRs. The driver of the Honda was killed. For the remainder of the 1970 season, Donohue ran a different Lola, with Chevy power, finishing second (again behind Al Unser) at Indianapolis Raceway Park in July. Despite this, Donohue still dominated the series, even though he suffered three DNFs during the season due to mechanical problems with the M6A. Stroll was "protecting" injured wrist during Bahrain GP practice, Alonso "not thinking" about Bahrain pole despite topping Friday times, Alonso "not thinking" about Bahrain pole despite topping Friday times 1975, resulting from an accident two days earlier during practice for the Austrian Grand Prix. And so, last Sunday, while warming up his car at the Oesterreichring, a hill five hours by train from Vienna in the middle of nowhere, he had an accident. I saw him race at Lime Rock in an Elva, and (longtime Penske friend and later president of the IROC series) Jay Signore said I should watch this guy. I think the people at Indy thought we were the college guys with the crew haircuts and the polished wheels. Auto Race Car Driver. He tinkered his way all through Pingry School, Brown University and a job as a mechanical engineer with the Pulverizing Machinery Corporation in Summit. In 1971, of the ten races that the Over 2.5L Class cars participated in, Donohue won seven of them, including the final six races in a row, with AMC winning the Manufacturers' championship for the first time ever. He did it through sheer force of will. The No. In 1967 and 1968, Trans-Am schedule included two of the most prized endurance races in the world, the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring. The only engineering Donohue went back to concerned race cars. He flew under the radar a lot, but he was always there. He turned out to be a real partner of mine. When she brought us in to see the finish, I dont think she knew he had won. Donohue finished in 12th place at the Canadian Grand Prix, but failed to finish at the United States Grand Prix. However, like most race drivers in the various top racing series around the world, he had lived an outright lot of life. Allison, the runner-up finisher, will forever be in awe of what he witnessed from Donohue, with whom hed eventually work while driving for Penske. Going racing meant anywhere and everywhere, and the two chose to tackle stock cars. Five weeks after winning the 500, Donohue was testing his Can-Am Porsche 917-10 at Road Atlanta when the car got airborne at 160 mph. Airport would have sent a stock Camaro flopping around. who retired from one of the greatest careers in auto racing history at age 36, unretired at 37 and died Tuesday night at 38 of brain injuries suffered in a crash before the Austrian. In 1967 he became the USRRC champion, winning six out of eight races. The pressures of racing and designing the car took their toll on Donohue. It is said that Donohue's head struck either a catch fencing post or the bottom of the wood frame for an advertising billboard located alongside of the racetrack.