On August 9, 1975, Donohue drove the 917-30 to a world closed-course speed record at the Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama. He took the lot to Lime Rock, Conn., and finished fourth in a sports car race. [2], At Hansgen's funeral, Roger Penske spoke to Donohue about driving for him. The search for Mark Donohue concludes in the upscale community of Summit, New Jersey just outside of New York City. No, I never worried about the dangers of racing, he said in March, 1974, while being honored at a luncheon following his retirement. Born in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Donohue grew up in Summit,[7] graduated from the Pingry School in Hillside, and entered Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. 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. The guy never gained that flashy status. Begrudgingly, Donohue used Bettenhausens setup for the race. Going racing meant anywhere and everywhere, and the two chose to tackle stock cars. In the 19721973 season, driving an AMC Matador for Penske Racing in NASCAR's top division, the Winston Cup Series, Donohue won the season-opening event at Riverside. He is buried in Saint Teresa Cemetery in Summit, Union County, New Jersey.R.I.P Mark Donohue \u0026 Manfred Schaller. Donohue's racing tradition is carried on by his son, David Donohue, a successful road racer in his own right. It affected the whole team. Your message has been sent. 12 and current Alltel decals) at the fall Rockingham, North Carolina, race. They changed the grille and taillight to the 1968 model, and then painted both cars identically. When Penske Racing took delivery of a Ferrari 512M, for instance, they immediately fabricated a bigger rear wing. 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. But supervising the Penske efforts in stock car and Indianapolistype racing did not agree with Donohue. [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. When Donohue took the Ferrari to Le Mans, the car attained only 205 mph on the straight versus the Porsche 917s 235 mph. He knew, maybe all along, that he would come back. By then, he had remarried to a model from Atlanta named Eden. And when he thought he had done enough, he quit. Revson's death made it almost inevitable that Donohue would come out of retirement. And Mark Donohue couldn't live with retirement. Don Cox would later join the team in 1969 after working as an engineer for General Motors. He thinks the same way. Mark Donohue began racing at the age of 22 in a 1957 Chevrolet Corvette . 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. The two drivers disagreed on many aspects of racing and car setup, but as a team were able to muster a fourth-place finish in the endurance classic.[13]. A bad week or the dark horse from F1 testing? In winning the first IROC championship, Donohue beat the best racing drivers of that era from all of the major championships, such as Denny Hulme, Richard Petty, A. J. Foyt, Emerson Fittipaldi, Bobby Allison, David Pearson, Peter Revson, Bobby Unser, and Gordon Johncock. Back then it was tape-delayed, and she was watching the race on TV. Forgot password? 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. Try a week on us. Mark Donohue & Manfred Schaller's Fatal Crash @ sterreichring 1975 (Aftermath) FatalMotorsportChannel 26.2K subscribers Subscribe 24K views 4 months ago Mark Donohue and Roger Penske had. Donohue won in 1972, driving for Penske. Donohue raced in the inaugural IROC series in 197374, racing identical, specially-prepared Porsche RSRs. Mark told me, Sometimes you just have to get it done., That was my take, too, says Michael Argetsinger, who has just written a riveting biography called Mark Donohue: Technical Excellence at Speed (David Bull Publishing, $39.95). On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. It was at Hangsens funeral that Roger Penske approached Donohue to drive for him. 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. Hangsen was killed testing a car for the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. 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 is known for Formula 1 (1950) and The Trans-Am Challenge (1972). He was good in Trans-Am, Indy cars, Can-Am and Formula One. 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 . 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. Donohue began his Trans-Am series campaign in 1967, winning three of twelve races in a Roger Penske-owned Chevrolet Camaro. To appreciate what Donohue and Penske accomplished that day, lets consider three important points: Its safe to say Donohue, an Ivy League-educated engineer, was Penskes muse when it came to auto racing; the burgeoning team owner offered Donohue a driving job at a funeral for Donohues friend, Walt Hansgen, his co-driver in sports cars whod helped guide young Donohues career to that point. At about 09h45 he left the pits again for another testing run. 4445. The lightweight car was featured on an episode of Dream Car Garage on Speed TV in 2005. Its made me realize its an honor to be his son. Acid-dipping car bodies was prevalent with competing Trans-Am teams also. Mark Donohue is killed during a practice session for the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix. 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. I got into racing because it seemed like an easy thing to do. Auto Race Car Driver. Seeing another man driving your car, a car you know so well. Donohue, equipped with a mechanical-engineering degree from Brown University, approached car setup not with pet theories or traditional wisdom but with a slide rule, an overarching grasp of how physics strives to thwart a race cars mission, and 300 push-ups daily. Toy cars at the gravesite of Mark Donohue in Summit, New Jersey. 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. Painkillers affected his memory, and he began drinking heavily to deal with the pain. Mark was an engineer from Brown University, Penske 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". We were there to go racing.. It would have been really fun to watch the two of them because they are so much alike. 66 Penske Racing entry went on to win at Indianapolis in 1972 to give Roger Penske the first of his 17 Indy 500 wins. The 38yearold Donohue underwent a threehour operation at a hospital here Sunday to remove a blood clot from his brain. A bad week or the dark horse from F1 testing? Appeal from that part of an order of the Supreme Court (Platkin, J. Its always great that history is reviewed and remembered and adds more to the prominence and significance of the event to bring it all together. The 1972 Indy win was a classic race for the man who not only drove the race car but also served as its engineer and mechanic back at Penske Racing. the email address you entered is invalid. Donohue was hit in the head by a fence post and knocked . He knew racing drivers couldn't come back. Michael is another guy but there is this thing between Mark and David, even in terms of their life experiences. When police found him about three hours later, his . In the four-race series, Donohue won the first and third of three races at Riverside and the final race of the year at Daytona. Watts.) Portrait of American racing driver Mark Donohue as he poses with his car after winning the Indianapolis 500 race, Speedway, Indiana, May 1972. . He did it at Talladega, Ala., in the turbocharged Porsche he drove to the 1973 CanAm title. [10], In 1966, thanks to his friendship with Hansgen, word quickly spread to the Ford Motor Company about the young driver. We will get back to you in 24 hours. Donohue disagreed. Prior to a race, he would sit in the back of the transporter by himself in the dark and think about the race, Czarnecki said. An investigation determined tire failure caused Donohue's fatal crash, and the family won a $12 million settlement. (key) (Bold Pole position. Strange and smart, but very driven., The drive set Mark Donohue apart and made him the winningest driver in Team Penske history. Sponsored by Ancestry. Mark Donohue returning from retirement to lead Roger Penske's Formula 1 team looked like a perfect match. 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. Except I knew it wouldnt last, recalls Penske Racings timer/scorer Judy Stropus. The supposition is that a support post from one of the advertising signs caught Donohue's helmet. But he was still, a great driver. He was the thinking man's driver, maybe because, unlike most of his rivals, he had an Ivy League education and maybe because looking at that cherubic face, which was several years younger than his racescarred body, there was no other way to explain how this kid was winning. Mark Donohue and Roger Penske during a break in the Indy-car action at Michigan International Speedway n 1974. 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. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Mark Donohue spent many late nights in the bungaloo in front of the original Penske garage in Newtown Square, Pa. Marks wife, Sue, raised young David and his older brother Michael. Her . If he didnt test a car before a race, he didnt have his Peanuts security blanket and would fret that his edge was lost.. Through racing and after more than four decades after the tragic death of his father, David Donohue believes he has found Mark Donohue. The email you entered is not registered with us. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/20/archives/donohue-38-dead-of-racing-injuries-mark-donohue-is-dead-of-racing.html. The only person to beat Donohue was his former Penske Trans-Am teammate, George Follmer. Donohue qualified his Penske midway the grid, and took it to the morning warm-up session before the start of the race. He turned out to be a real partner of mine. Mark Donohue died last night. When she brought us in to see the finish, I dont think she knew he had won. And I know that Roger loved him. [2], Donohue was invited back to Le Mans by Ford in 1967. An investigation determined tire failure caused Donohues fatal crash, and the family won a $12 million settlement. Back to Victory Lane, Every Indy 500 Winner from the Dawn of Time, In search of Team Penske racing legend Mark Donohue. Twice before he had had serious accidents and he walked like a man who had had his knees shattered and put back together again. In fact, Mark often wasnt the engineer at all. Donohue did not start the first race of the year at Circuit Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City due to problems getting the engine to start. Though he walked away from the resulting crash, he fell into a coma the next day and, shortly after, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. 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. Instructions on how to reset your password have been sent to your email. Has Alonso made the right choice gambling on Aston Martin F1? Please try again. Carrying the number 66, Donohue qualified 13 th for the California 500, but a burned piston ended his day early, on lap eight. 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. Harry Gant was a champion in 1985, Ricky Rudd was a champion in 1992 and Mark Martin became a five-time champion; all three failed to secure NASCAR championships. We had a polished yellow tile floor in our garage in Gasoline Alley and took everything out at night and cleaned the floor. Instead, the Racemark GT had Bedard, also a racer, showering praise. That got everybodys attention -- the polished wheels, the way our guys looked, the way the cars were prepared and obviously, the performance was good. He was passionate about racing. 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 Grand Prix. . He flew under the radar a lot, but he was always there. I know their first conversation after the race, he didnt say (that he had won). Cars that Donohue raced include: AMC Javelin, AMC Matador, Chevrolet Camaro, Eagle-Offy, Elva Courier, Ford GT40 MK IV, Ferrari 250LM, Ferrari 512, Lola T70, Lola T330, Lotus 20, McLaren M16, Porsche 911, Porsche 917/10, Porsche 917/30, Shelby Cobra, and Shelby Mustang GT350R. What controls the frontline in the latest F1 design tech battles, Why Autosport is changing how it ranks F1 drivers from 2023 onwards, Why Autosport is changing how it ranks F1 drivers from 2023 onwards Seeing it in real life when you come into the museum here, I know one thing -- I fit in it really well. When David Donohue was young, he never really got to know his father -- Mark Donohue. Donohue. Donohue was about to have his race victory taken away for cheating, but Roger Penske stepped in. To those who work at the cemetery, Donohue is simply known as The Race Car Driver to visitors looking for his gravesite. And neither found what they expected. 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. When you see the car in real life, it becomes so much more real.. ), (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap). It comes up quickly and, at more than 90 degrees, is the slowest corner on this course. Had there been a Drivers' Championship in place at the time, he would have won three of them (his last in 1971) while driving Camaros in 1968 and 1969, and an AMC Javelin in 1971, all for Roger Penske Racing.