I always said driving wasn't really a dangerous situation. This remains the last time a ringer captured a win in a Cup Series road course race, but the victory took on a far greater meaning in hindsight. He died on August 19, 1975 in Graz, Styria, Austria. Penske warned that any disqualification would have the potential of motivating Chevrolet to pull all support for the Trans-Am series. I was at Lime Rock, Connecticut, Donohue said. Oops! Strange and smart, but very driven., The drive set Mark Donohue apart and made him the winningest driver in Team Penske history. He did everything he could to lose me. No, I never worried about the dangers of racing, he said in March, 1974, in New York while being honored at a luncheon. Donohue's rocketed 7 through four wire catchfences and several roadside billboards. Try a week on us. One track marshal was killed by the crash and another seriousy injured. He was a winner at the 24 Hours of Daytona and in stock cars. The lightweight car was featured on an episode of Dream Car Garage on Speed TV in 2005. Driver who fled fatal Olney crash gets 20-year sentence. He had been a national amateur champion and the Sports Car Club of America driver of the year in 1965. Donohue took three victories and the series championship, besting the likes of Petty, Allison, David Pearson, A.J. He finds the same things funny. Donohue began working with cars while growing up in the nineteenfifties in a comfortable neighborhood in Summit, N. J. 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". He will be ranked with A. J. Foyt, Dan Gurney and Andretti in the leading group of American drivers. Don Cox would later join the team in 1969 after working as an engineer for General Motors. Neither Donohue or Penske forgot that remark, even after Donohue drove an astounding race and finished third. They changed the grille and taillight to the 1968 model, and then painted both cars identically. Penske and Donohue did not stop acid-dipping after this, however. Ford had developed a new GT, the Mark IV. For Donohue, there was little time to grieve, as his own Le Mans debut was looming. 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. "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. As a person, he was always fun to be around, but I always admired that work ethic he displayed when it was time to race., Donohue was known as Captain Nice. To some, however, Donohue seemed distant and was later nicknamed Dark Monohue., Donohue was a good guy, said long-time racing journalist Robin Miller, who was a young reporter for The Indianapolis Star when Donohue raced at Indy. We were the college kids with the crew cuts and the polished wheels, Penske said. A visit to the gravesite on a gray, cold, foggy March day revelaved little toy race cars on the gravestone, along with a plastic checkered flag -- a testament the life of Mark Donohue. Three years later, Mark was gone, dead from a cerebral hemorrhage suffered in a crash during practice for the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix at sterreichring. 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. Directing other drivers, making suggestions, helping mechanicseven sweeping up around the garagewere not enough. He did it at Talladega, Ala., in the turbocharged Porsche he drove to the 1973 CanAm title. The driver must accept the risks involved, which I did and I spent my time in the hispital as a result., See the article in its original context from. Ferraris chief engineer Mauro Forghieri glared at it and said, Theyll never let you run that wing at Le Mans. Mark replied, Well, I wouldnt want to run this wing at Le Mans, would I?, Partly because we were both engineers, Mark and I hit it off, recalls Patrick Bedard. Donohue went on to win the first-ever 500-mile USAC Champ Car Series race at Pocono in 71 and claimed victory at Indianapolis in his return in 1972. August 19th marks twenty-five years ago that Mark Donohue passed away from brain trauma, which was caused from an accident while practicing for a Formula 1 event. U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current. 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 know their first conversation after the race, he didnt say (that he had won). Found a bug?SuggestionsCopyrightNeed help?Business DevelopmentGeneral inquiry, PopScreen - Video Search, Bookmarking and Discovery Engine. Once, Penske rented a Formula One car for Donohue and in 1971, in his first start in one of these singleseat, opencockpit racing cars, he finished third in the Canadian Grand Prix. With the Corvette money, he also bought a trailer to hold the car and a station wagon to tow the trailer.. It was an iconic car, iconic colors for the day and it really brings back memories. . His condition quickly worsened and he passed away two days later, victim of a blood clot in his brain.Following the fatal accident the sterreichring first turn was tightened in 1976 and the track lenght passed from 5.911 to 5.906 kilometers. When Mark . Police have not yet released his identity. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007. A full season of racing for the 1975 Formula One season was planned. George Follmer, Donohue's old Trans-Am teammate, took over testing the 917-10 for Donohue, who said: It just doesn't feel right. Mark Donohue was one of the daredevil drivers of the 1970's. He exuded boyhood charm, was a speed demon behind the wheel, and was a legend of US racing, with wins at Daytona, the Indy 500, and Trans-Am Champion. That was the most striking thing I ever saw him do. In 1970 new Javelin team owner Roger Penske and driver Mark Donohue would breathe new life into the AMC team. It began as a hobby in 1959 when Donohue sold his soupedup Corvette, which he used to drive around at Brown, and for $3,000 purchased his first racing cara little Elva with an MG engine. Carrying the number 66, Donohue qualified 13 th for the California 500, but a burned piston ended his day early, on lap eight. [2], Donohue was hired on March 29, 1964, by Jack Griffith [Griffith Motors, Syosset, N.Y./Plainview, N.Y.] as design engineer for the Griffith, formerly TVR Grantura Mk III, powered by a Ford 289 cid (4.7l) V8 engine. Donohue was hit in the head by a fence post and knocked . But he always had good equipment, too. In 69 Mark repeated his Trans-Am championship, winning six of 12. But there was one phase of racing that he had never really taken part in, what he called his personal missing link. This was in the Formula One cars, perhaps this dangerous sport's most dangerous, which run on the grand prix circuit. Its been 43 years since Donohues death, but he remains Penske Racings cornerstone. Clark, J. Donohues father was a patent attorney. He sustained a fatal head injury from the crash. [citation needed]. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that all memorial donations be sent to the Auto Racing Fraternity Foundation, 13539 Northern Boulevard, Flushing, Queens. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. We werent out there to have fun. Except I knew it wouldnt last, recalls Penske Racings timer/scorer Judy Stropus. The driver of the Honda was killed. He knew racing drivers couldn't come back. 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.. 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. His fathers absence from the family took its toll, and eventually the marriage dissolved into divorce. 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. Mark Donohue died last night. He won the Can Am championship in 197, the TransAm title in 1968, 1969 and 1971. 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. Then they put both cars in the race, number 15 and 16, one car being 250 pounds lighter. Donohue finished in 12th place at the Canadian Grand Prix, but failed to finish at the United States Grand Prix. The 917-30 is referred to as the "Can-Am killer" [18] as it dominated the competition, winning all but two races of the 1973 Can-Am championship (which is an untrue statement, because OPEC killed the Can-Am series in 19751976). 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. I always said driving wasn't really a dangerous situation. Portrait of American racing driver Mark Donohue as he poses with his car after winning the Indianapolis 500 race, Speedway, Indiana, May 1972. . A headache resulted, however, and worsened. A bad week or the dark horse from F1 testing? He answered, "It will never have enough power until I can spin the wheels at the end of the straightaway in high gear.". Please try again. 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.. J. Funk and J. L. He lost his life doing what he wanted to do, which is one thing, but it took us a long time to get over that. He was, I feel, the finest road race driver this country has ever produced, Allison told Hemmings Motor News years later. Czarnecki saw the brilliance, humor and darkness -- all part of Donohues character. I realized then that if I wanted to do better in this business I had to spend more time on my car, he said. 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. We started with a Lola 4-wheel drive, and in 1971 we got a McLaren. Conversely, Mark had one of the greatest senses of humor of anybody I ever met. 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. And given enough time just one more year, maybe he wouldve become Americas first world champion.. Coffay fled the scene. Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. When Penske decided late to enter Formula One full time, Donohue had a difficult decision to make. Donohue won. In the final race of the season, Javelins finished in first, second and third place, with George Follmer becoming the only other Javelin driver to win besides Donohue. 1975, resulting from an accident two days earlier during practice for the Austrian Grand Prix. Every dime I had I put into cars, he said. You never saw him in an argument with anybody. . He could drive a car in the 24-hour race at Daytona, a Trans-Am Car, an Indy car and a NASCAR car. He gave us a lot of credibility and was the keystone of our racing. The book was published shortly before Donohue's death. (key) (Bold Pole position. When Mark Donohue died in Austria 40 years ago this week, motor racing lost not only a hugely successful driver, but also someone who would surely have enjoyed a long and productive career on the other side of the sport. He was a sweet gentleman in every race. I dont remember him changing a bit.. Donohue went on to win 10 of 13 races, a Trans-Am series record which would stand until Tommy Kendall went 11 for 13 in the 1997 Trans-Am championship, winning the first 11 races that year in his All-Sport liveried Mustang. We need an obit." Warming up for the Austrian Grand Prix, my hero, Donohue, 38, had spun his March at 150 mph and struck his head on a metal bar supporting a sign. Donohue paced himself that day and took the lead for the first time with 12 laps to go. 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 It was August 9, 1975. He died two days later. Today, he works for Porsche Cars North America as client relationship manager. That didnt satisfy his competitive spirits, so he decided to take on Formula One. David followed his father into sports car racing for Porsche. First to go was his marriage, says Argetsinger. Donohue was the driver of Penskes first Brickyard effort in 1969. Mark Donohue. Think about the championships we won together, the first Indy 500 victory for the team, three Trans-Am championships. Why Las Vegas is key to F1's growth plans, Mercedes: New W14 sidepod design wont copy F1 rivals, Mercedes: New W14 sidepod design wont copy F1 rivals He busted a gut when we got back to the shop. Then there was Marks other side. Donohue, who also competed in endurance racing, IndyCar, NASCAR, Can-Am,. racing was concerned, he had done it all. Amazingly, Donohue only suffered an internal derangement of his knee with meniscus damage and limited cruciate plus collateral ligament damage. After an initial run of four laps, Donohue entered the pits for a routine check-up and a few adjustments. They also acid-dipped the body on the Camaro and had to caution people not to lean against it, for fear it would dent. Seeing it in real life when you come into the museum here, I know one thing -- I fit in it really well. 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. We need an obit.. He finished the race in his McLaren-Offy setting a record speed of over 162mph (261km/h),[16] which stood for twelve years. An out-of-court settlement was reached Wednesday at Providence, R.I., in the appeal of a $9.6-million Superior Court verdict awarded the estate of race driver Mark Donohue, killed during practice . [2][6], Donohue won the SCCA national championship in an Elva Courier in 1961. Im sure David really missed out on a lot. 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 They sent the legal weight car through the technical inspection with the number 15 and again with the number 16 on it. 12 and current Alltel decals) at the fall Rockingham, North Carolina, race. And neither found what they expected. In auto racing, though, even thinking man's drivers can get killed by punctured tires. Its something that Ive looked at since I was really young as a kid, Donohue said. The doctors in Graz, Austria, said yesterday that the racing driver would have been crippled for life had he survived. Donohue began the 1975 Formula 1 season as a 38-year-old rookie and the oldest driver on the grid. 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. Donohue recently had arrived in Austria for the Austrian Grand Prix at the sterreichring race track following the successful closed-course speed record attempt at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama just a few days earlier. The pressures of racing and designing the car took their toll on Donohue. Choose a Username Available! Make sure you track out all the way for Turn 7. The rookies looking to make their mark on F1 in 2023, What controls the frontline in the latest F1 design tech battles, What controls the frontline in the latest F1 design tech battles 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. At the Austrian Grand Prix, Donohue's career, along with Roger Penske's Formula One aspirations, took a tragic turn. 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. Why Autosport is changing how it ranks F1 drivers from 2023 onwards, The key factors behind F1s Premier League-style managerial revolving door, The key factors behind F1s Premier League-style managerial revolving door Together, they took on Trans-Am, then turned their attention to the Indianapolis 500. That is where Mark Donohue often slept when he worked his way to near exhaustion at the race shop. The winner of the 1972 Indianapolis 500 and the Can Am in l973. Despite this, Donohue still dominated the series, even though he suffered three DNFs during the season due to mechanical problems with the M6A. During their enormous success in Trans-Am, Penske and Donohue would begin to experiment with their Camaros. Donohue dominated the 1967 race, driving a Lola T70 MkIII Chevrolet for Penske. Why F1's nearly man is refreshed and ready for his return, IndyCar St. Petersburg: Dixon leads Herta in incident-packed opening practice, IndyCar St. Petersburg: Dixon leads Herta in incident-packed opening practice He died two days later. Porsche, Penske, and Donohue quickly started the development of the 917-30, complete with a reworked aerodynamic "Paris" body and a 5.4-liter turbocharged flat-12 engine whose output could be adjusted from about 1,100 to 1,500 bhp[citation needed] by turning a boost knob in the cockpit. 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 . When Donohue took the Ferrari to Le Mans, the car attained only 205 mph on the straight versus the Porsche 917s 235 mph. At the age of twenty-two,[citation needed] while a senior at Brown, Donohue began racing his 1957 Corvette. On January 21, 1973, the NASCAR Cup Series opened its season with a road course race at Riverside International Raceway in California. The Newtown Square facility was a small, 4,000 square-foot garage out back with a small bungalow in front of the shop. Donohue disagreed. On August 9, 1975, Donohue drove the 917-30 to a world closed-course speed record at the Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama. I don't think I could have handled that.. He won Indy and we juiced him up and he was out there giving a speech and he was so funny that his sense of humor came out and everybody loved it. The Griffith company closed its doors in November, 1966. He was killed during a practice session for the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix. Donohue qualified his Penske midway the grid, and took it to the morning warm-up session before the start of the race. There, he was Godthat was his way of distinguishing himself. His divine touch extended to his street cars; a friend once described riding in Donohues Porsche 911 as a Wall of Death thing most of the time., The relentless pursuit of perfection eventually took its toll. 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. When Penske Racing took delivery of a Ferrari 512M, for instance, they immediately fabricated a bigger rear wing. After the Arab oil embargo in 1973, it led the SCCA, IMSA and other race series to impose fuel limitations on motor sport racing as a whole, which hampered the performance of the 917/30, making it uncompetitive in the Can-Am series. After coming out of retirement with his former boss, Penske, Donohue returned to Formula One, entering into the final two races of the 1974 Formula One season. See the article in its original context from. 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. The real Mark came out.. Upstairs was a small room with a bed that had an outside private entrance. He won the first event he entered, a hillclimb[2] in Belknap County, New Hampshire. And my wife gave me permission, so when something like that happens you have to go. Drexel University 1973 Lexerd (Yearbook), pp. Truth is, they often didnt know if something would work., Thirty-three years after the big crash, Penske told Argetsinger: Mark was my best friend [this, despite Donohue once spearing his boss with an AMC Javelin in the pits, tossing Penske 15 feet]. He turned out to be a real partner of mine. He thinks the same way. Several minutes later Donohue regained consciousness and spoke with his rescuers, who took him to Knittelfeld hospital. Donohue won in 1972, driving for Penske. At first, the former Indianapolis 500 winner was thought to have just a mild concussion. Every time David Donohue sees that car, he sees his father. What we learned from Friday practice at F1's 2023 Bahrain GP. To those who work at the cemetery, Donohue is simply known as The Race Car Driver to visitors looking for his gravesite. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. The highlight of his entire career was winning the . 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. DON HUNTER, BILL OURSLER, THE MANUFACTURERS, Elana Scherr: On the Count of Three (Wheels), Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. After considering the potential consequences, the race stewards allowed Donohue's victory to stand, but the rules for the 1968 season incorporated a change whereby all cars would be weighed during the technical inspection before the race. Two weeks ago, however, he showed he had not lost his skill at getting a race car around a track when he set a world speed record of 221.160 miles an hour for a closed course. 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. The No. It is strangely rewarding in a way I never thought racing would be for me, personally. Among the most impressive cars in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum is the beautiful blue and yellow No. 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]. His son, David, told me: The legend was that my dad and Roger conquered all. Unfortunately, Donohue lost a life after an accident during practice for 1975 Austrian Grand Prix. The only engineering Donohue went back to concerned race cars. Mark was an engineer from Brown University, Penske said. "They posted me to the infield, taking care of people who got too much sun or had too much to drink," Olvey said. The Ferrari lived up to none of Marks calculations, and he was devastated, Bedard recalls. That sense of realism often hits Mark Donohues son. Hamilton: F1 retirement talk from Button and Hill not "helpful, How Gulf deal has boosted Williams's F1 commercial strategy, How Gulf deal has boosted Williams's F1 commercial strategy 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. And, according to Cox, Roger certainly did his part in coming up with next projects.. A bad week or the dark horse from F1 testing? The latter passed away at 09h20 on Tuesday 19 August 1975, while being treated at a Knittelfeld hospital.Donohue was hit in the head by one of the catch-fence supporting posts and was knocked unconscious. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker. 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. . They were embarrassed, and like the streak of success following the 71 Indianapolis 500, they returned to Riverside in 1973 with a heavy chip on their shoulders. But Donohue knew that time was running short and his skills and reflexes weren't getting any better. [5][19] Donohue is buried at St. Teresa Cemetery in Summit, New Jersey. 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 was killed during a practice session for the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix.
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