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To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. But where other youngsters were souping up cars to impress girls, I was only interested in the mechanics, Donohue said. He died from severe head injuries sustained August 16 in practice for the Austrian Grand Prix at Graz, Austria. Complete Canadian-American Challenge Cup results, Inskip Family History & Competition Engineering staff. That got everybodys attention -- the polished wheels, the way our guys looked, the way the cars were prepared and obviously, the performance was good. When Mark . Donohue raced in several NASCAR Grand American races and a NASCAR pony car division from 1968 until 1971. David Donohue drives his dad's 1972 Indy 500-winning car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2016. 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. 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. [17] That race was Penske's first NASCAR win in a long history of NASCAR participation. 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. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. "They posted me to the infield, taking care of people who got too much sun or had too much to drink," Olvey said. Donohue's racing tradition is carried on by his son, David Donohue, a successful road racer in his own right. 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. 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. In his career, Donohue started 311 races and won 119 of them, a winning average of 38 percent. 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. The 38yearold Donohue underwent a threehour operation at a hospital here Sunday to remove a blood clot from his brain. 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. However, like most race drivers in the various top racing series around the world, he had lived an outright lot of life. During the day, being the state of health still worrying, he was airlifted to the Universittsklinik of Graz where he was operated by Dr. Fritz Heppner. Choose a Username Available! 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 . At the age of twenty-two,[citation needed] while a senior at Brown, Donohue began racing his 1957 Corvette. But this was a safe driver, a man who knew his limits, his car's limits and didn't go over the edge, as they say in racing. He won the Can Am championship in 197, the TransAm title in 1968, 1969 and 1971. 4 yellow car with sports car driver and race car builder Bruce McLaren for Shelby American Racing. Has Alonso made the right choice gambling on Aston Martin F1? But he kept complaining of headaches and Mario Andretti, who also has an obsession with grand prix racing, said Donohue was lapsing in and out of consciousness, Donohue was rushed to a hospital at Graz where grays revealed blood clot on the brain. 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 died two days later. 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. 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 Fellow racer and former teammate Sam Posey called Donohue, a gunslinger who also happened to have designed the gun.. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/21/archives/mark-donohue-returns-to-die.html. "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 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 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. In 1970 new Javelin team owner Roger Penske and driver Mark Donohue would breathe new life into the AMC team. Has Alonso made the right choice gambling on Aston Martin F1? Strange and smart, but very driven., The drive set Mark Donohue apart and made him the winningest driver in Team Penske history. At first, the former Indianapolis 500 winner was thought to have just a mild concussion. The tangible steps Alpine has taken to meeting its humble F1 2023 targets, Why "grounded" Hamilton remains confident in Mercedes' F1 recovery, Why "grounded" Hamilton remains confident in Mercedes' F1 recovery through one of the fastest turns on the track. A fire at the Sunoco refinery near the airport dominated the front pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer, but the sports section belonged to Mark Donohue, a racecar driver who had blown a tire during a practice run before the Austrian Grand Prix and died from complications related to the accident two days later, August 19, 1975. Both Olvey and Trammell got their start in trackside medical response in similar fashion: Answering a bulletin board call for med students to help out at the Indianapolis 500 - Olvey in about 1969, Trammell in 1972. Donohue qualified his Penske midway the grid, and took it to the morning warm-up session before the start of the race. It was. But he was still, a great driver. In 1969, Penske brought his team -- and the Penske way -- to the Indianapolis 500 for the first time. Unfair Advantages: The Life and Times of Mark Donohue During a post-race inspection, race stewards discovered that the car was 250 pounds lighter than the 2,800-pound minimum weight requirement. Seeing another man driving your car, a car you know so well. 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. Not true. He did the job for Roger, no question. 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 I did everything I could to keep up. My friends began warning me., Racing was becoming an obsession, but in 1965, he realized: Maybe I can make a living out of something like to do. 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. 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. So they fiddled with it in non-meaningful ways, then Mark went back out. He gained 11.5 secondsthe quickest Ferrari in the field and fourth overall. U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current. 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. Donohue had stepped out of driving retirement . When Penske decided late to enter Formula One full time, Donohue had a difficult decision to make. 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. He took the lot to Lime Rock, Conn., and finished fourth in a sports car race. 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. Their performance on the track also quickly turned heads. The driver must accept the risks involved, which I didand I spent my time in the hospital as a result.. The 917/30 generally is considered one of the most powerful and most dominant racing machines ever created. Brian Redman drove it once in 1974, and that was it for the car as far as Penske campaigning it. With the Corvette money, he also bought a trailer to hold the car and a station wagon to tow the trailer.. Don Cox would later join the team in 1969 after working as an engineer for General Motors. Penske, along with Donohue's wife, Eden, and father, Mark Sr., were at Donohue's bedside. And my wife gave me permission, so when something like that happens you have to go. The 1967 Z-28 won its last race by lapping the entire field of cars, causing suspicion throughout the paddock. 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.. Although photographs of Donohue with the more aerodynamic 1974 Matador coupe exist and are published, he did not drive it in competition. 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. Mark Donohue drove the Porsche 917-30 Can-Am after making various aerodynamic and suspension modifications. 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. 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. He was a partner, he was a friend and a critical piece of the foundation of our race team.. It was, as they say in racing, a freak accident. He was so gentlemanly, he was boring. His first marriage ended in divorce and some friends blamed racing. Foyt and Emerson Fittipaldi, among others tangible proof that, stock-car equipment being even, Donohue was a world beater. [citation needed] He graduated from Brown in 1959 with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. That is something I would have never had if I didnt go to races. Mark Donohue SCCA national champion early in a career Donohue was born in New Jersey on March 18, 1937, and became involved in racing as a senior at college. Mark Donohue - Human Side of Racing 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. In 1968, Donohue and Penske returned to defend their USRRC championship with the McLaren M6A Chevrolet. Mark felt he had to devote all his time to the team. It was hard to believe because Donohue and team owner Roger Penske were then the cleverest guys in racing. But supervising the Penske efforts in stock car and Indianapolistype racing did not agree with Donohue. Instead, Donohue retired. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/20/archives/donohue-38-dead-of-racing-injuries-mark-donohue-is-dead-of-racing.html. 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. 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. Forgot password? He answered, "It will never have enough power until I can spin the wheels at the end of the straightaway in high gear.". 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). Losing a driver is something you cant replace. He was so key in the operation when he was there its something we had to rebuild. 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. 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. ), (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap). Mark contracted polio when he was 6, but he fully recovered. Today, he works. Donohue held the record for 11 years, until it was broken by Rick Mears at Michigan International Speedway . Anyone can read what you share. 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. Racing Heroes - Mark Donohue | Hemmings He busted a gut when we got back to the shop. Then there was Marks other side. Donohue. Mark Donohue's tragic comeback - Autosport He tinkered his way all through Pingry School, Brown University and a job as a mechanical engineer with the Pulverizing Machinery Corporation in Summit. Mark won the 1972 Indianapolis 500 when David was just five. We brought some technology. Try a week on us. Auto Race Car Driver. Autoweek participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. One-hit wonder: Mark Donohue and his 1973 Riverside win helped elevate Donohue. The track chosen for the speed record attempt was the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. ', On Wednesday morning, August 20, 1975, the phone rang in my dingy beige apartment in Burlington, Ontario. (Photo: Bob DOlivo / The Enthusiast Network via Getty Images). He went over 180 miles per hour for the first time and it wasnt on the chart, so nobody knew how fast he went. It was an iconic car, iconic colors for the day and it really brings back memories. That took a couple of years. Instructions on how to reset your password have been sent to your email. Driver who fled fatal Olney crash gets 20-year sentence 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. The Unfair Advantage by Mark Donohue | Goodreads He began to spend more than time. Ford had developed a new GT, the Mark IV. To those who work at the cemetery, Donohue is simply known as The Race Car Driver to visitors looking for his gravesite. 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. 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 Fatal Crash | PopScreen 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. Mark Donohue Fatal Crash (Alternate Footage) - video Dailymotion 4445. He said, Just follow me. Following Mark Donohue on a two-lane road with no street lights was an exercise. An investigation determined tire failure caused Donohue's fatal crash, and the family won a $12 million settlement. You can go away and the void that you leave gets filled quickly, but when you come back, you are greeted with open arms. 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. 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. He knew racing drivers couldn't come back. Mark Donohue - Biography - IMDb Think about the championships we won together, the first Indy 500 victory for the team, three Trans-Am championships. Donohue took three victories and the series championship, besting the likes of Petty, Allison, David Pearson, A.J. 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. Then they put both cars in the race, number 15 and 16, one car being 250 pounds lighter. He was, I feel, the finest road race driver this country has ever produced, Allison told Hemmings Motor News years later. Penske and Donohue did not stop acid-dipping after this, however. Mark Donohue: Returns to Die - The New York Times 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 . Portrait of American racing driver Mark Donohue as he poses with his car after winning the Indianapolis 500 race, Speedway, Indiana, May 1972. . It is there at Saint Teresa Cemetery and Mausoleum that Donohue is buried alongside his mother and father. Twice before he had had serious accidents and he walked like a man who had had his knees shattered and put back together again. The email you entered is not registered with us. But he always had good equipment, too. The setup he designed for his car didnt have as much speed as teammate Gary Bettenhausens setup. It is core to the myth of Mark that he was just an okay driver but a genius engineer. Please try again. He finds the same things funny. But in eight months of retirement, the quiet, wellspoken kid from the other side of the tracks learned that the hobby that had become an obsession still haunted him. The supposition is that a support post from one of the advertising signs caught Donohue's helmet. Donohue was hit in the head by a fence post and knocked unconscious. 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. Its something that Ive looked at since I was really young as a kid, Donohue said. His son, David, told me: The legend was that my dad and Roger conquered all. Settlement of Mark Donohue's Estate Reached - Los Angeles Times 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. 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. Prior to racing in Formula One, Donohue was a racer in the Ford GT40, Trans-Am, Indy car, NASCAR, Can-Am and IROC racing series. Le cavalier du diable - Film d'pouvante sur Tl 7 Jours When Penske Racing took delivery of a Ferrari 512M, for instance, they immediately fabricated a bigger rear wing. [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. Event the win at the 1972 Indianapolis 500 created more sleepless nights, because the win did not come on his own terms. He joined Roger Penske, a former sports car rival who had set up his own team, the following year as a fulltime professional. An investigation determined tire failure caused Donohues fatal crash, and the family won a $12 million settlement. Sometimes, I would leave early and take my own car to the airport because I didnt want to put up with him. Hangsen was killed testing a car for the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. He was very quiet, very unassuming, Mario Andretti told Autoweek. Mark Donohue profile on SnapLap DUI accident in the history of this county," Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy said at a news conference. Donohue co-drove in the No. Ford immediately signed Donohue to drive one of their GT-40 Mk II race cars campaigned at the 24 Hours of Le Mans by the Holman & Moody racing team. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker. The book was published shortly before Donohue's death. Even with only three caution flags, the race lasted 12 minutes shy of five hours, a brutal exercise for the majority of the right-turn-averse stock car regulars, but nothing a veteran of the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring hadnt already experienced. IndyCar St. Petersburg: Dixon leads Herta in incident-packed opening practice, Bahrain GP: F1 technical images direct from the pitlane, Bahrain GP: F1 technical images direct from the pitlane "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. We werent out there to have fun. [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. 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. From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. Cresser v CDTS, 1 (2015 NY Slip Op 03227) 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. 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 He was a sweet gentleman in every race. I could see myself helping to develop the Formula One car, setting it up and then having some younger hotshot driver take over. Hed eventually swap leads with Richard Petty, but took the reins of the race for good for the final 75 circuits, lapping the entire field in the process. Donohue raced at Indianapolis each year following,[15] finishing second in 1970 and 25th in 1971. We used to clean our garage out every night, and that was something people didnt understand..