After an initial run of four laps, Donohue entered the pits for a routine check-up and a few adjustments. 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 . Anyone can read what you share. During his stay at Griffith Mark drove the Griffith-owned Shelby 289 Cobra making his mark on the SCCA circuit. Penske and Donohue did not stop acid-dipping after this, however. 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. 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. From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. Donohue. Donohue raced in several NASCAR Grand American races and a NASCAR pony car division from 1968 until 1971. He turned out to be a real partner of mine. That didnt satisfy his competitive spirits, so he decided to take on Formula One. He also gave us our first NASCAR win. Its made me realize its an honor to be his son. Im sure David really missed out on a lot. David followed his father into sports car racing for Porsche. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. 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. FIA grants Hamilton medical exemption to wear nose studs, Hamilton: F1 retirement talk from Button and Hill not "helpful, Hamilton: F1 retirement talk from Button and Hill not "helpful Make sure you track out all the way for Turn 7. 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. Donohue had stepped out of driving retirement . DON HUNTER, BILL OURSLER, THE MANUFACTURERS, Elana Scherr: On the Count of Three (Wheels), Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. That long association resulted in the ultimate triumph for an American driver in 1972, when he won the Indianapolis 500. During testing at Road Atlanta, Donohue recommended larger brake ducts, believing that more cooling would slow the brakes' degradation during a race. You can go away and the void that you leave gets filled quickly, but when you come back, you are greeted with open arms. Several minutes later Donohue regained consciousness and spoke with his rescuers, who took him to Knittelfeld hospital. And I know that Roger loved him. He answered, "It will never have enough power until I can spin the wheels at the end of the straightaway in high gear.". 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]. It is core to the myth of Mark that he was just an okay driver but a genius engineer. Michael is another guy but there is this thing between Mark and David, even in terms of their life experiences. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Most of Donohues wins (28) came in Trans-Am, the United States Road Racing Championship (12) and Can-Am (10). Email or password is incorrect. racing was concerned, he had done it all. 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 was my original partner in racing, Penske told Autoweek. 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. GRAZ, Austria, Aug. 19 (AP)Mark Donohue, who ended an eightmonth retirement as an auto driver last year because he couldn't keep away from racing, died tonight of injuries suffered Sunday at the Austrian Grand Prix. The victory was the first for Penske in the Indy 500. The four-race schedule consisted of three races at Riverside and a finale on Daytonas road course. I dont remember him changing a bit.. Brad Keselowski is second with 54 wins in NASCAR Xfinity and Monster Energy Cup Series racing. Walt Czarnecki, Team Penske vice chairman and among the operations early members, has a deep admiration and respect for what Donohue meant to the Penske organization. I got into racing because it seemed like an easy thing to do. At about 09h45 he left the pits again for another testing run. 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 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. When he came out, he was a different person. 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. A Pennsylvania native by the name of Mark Donohue, the reigning Indianapolis 500 winner, pedaled a red-white-and-blue AMC Matador to his only Cup Series victory in six career starts. The pressures of racing and designing the car took their toll on Donohue. 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 It would have really been great watching those two together in the later years if it had gotten that far. He obsessively lived at the shop, working as many as 20 hours a day. [citation needed]. The lightweight car was featured on an episode of Dream Car Garage on Speed TV in 2005. 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. During their enormous success in Trans-Am, Penske and Donohue would begin to experiment with their Camaros. He busted a gut when we got back to the shop. Then there was Marks other side. Of 55 Trans-Ams he entered, he won 29. Though he walked away from the resulting crash, he fell into a coma the next day and, shortly after, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Advertisement. That got everybodys attention -- the polished wheels, the way our guys looked, the way the cars were prepared and obviously, the performance was good. Neither Donohue or Penske forgot that remark, even after Donohue drove an astounding race and finished third. 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. In 1969, Penske and Donohue raced in their first Indianapolis 500,[14] with Donohue finishing seventh, winning the rookie of the year award. 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 Donohue disagreed. He began to spend more than time. 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. Aug 21, 2015, 4:28 PM. Watts.) He finished the race in his McLaren-Offy setting a record speed of over 162mph (261km/h),[16] which stood for twelve years. Mark Donohue began racing at the age of 22 in a 1957 Chevrolet Corvette . * Most laps led. Browse 481 mark donohue stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. Mark Donohue. ', On Wednesday morning, August 20, 1975, the phone rang in my dingy beige apartment in Burlington, Ontario. Mark Donohue was 38 and a sports car champion and 1972 Indianapolis 500 winner. 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. ), 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. It would have been really fun to watch the two of them because they are so much alike. Directing other drivers, making suggestions, helping mechanicseven sweeping up around the garagewere not enough. The Newtown Square facility was a small, 4,000 square-foot garage out back with a small bungalow in front of the shop. We had a polished yellow tile floor in our garage in Gasoline Alley and took everything out at night and cleaned the floor. 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. Mark Donohue racked in 59 career wins for Team Penske in several different series. So in a televised interview after the incident, race driver Mark Donohue told the story of his horrific practice crash at Road Atlanta with carefully chosen words. Seeing another man driving your car, a car you know so well. He was helped by Emerson Fittipaldi, Bob Evans and Hans-Joachim Stuck, who arrived to the scene of the accident and parked their cars. To be sure, it seems what we now know as The Penske Way gained steam with Donohue as its pied piper. Hansgen died while testing the GT40 in preparation for Le Mans so Donohue partnered with Australian Paul Hawkins. His true passion was racing. But supervising the Penske efforts in stock car and Indianapolistype racing did not agree with Donohue. Donohue dominated the 1967 race, driving a Lola T70 MkIII Chevrolet for Penske. [2][6], Donohue won the SCCA national championship in an Elva Courier in 1961. 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 only engineering Donohue went back to concerned race cars. The email you entered is not registered with us. They won the race, finished third overall, and went on to win 10 out of 13 races that year. On the phone, the editor said, You gotta come back in. One night I was in Philadelphia and was following Mark to the old shop in Newtown Square. 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. See the article in its original context from. He was passionate about racing. The Ferrari lived up to none of Marks calculations, and he was devastated, Bedard recalls. 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. 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. When David Donohue was young, he never really got to know his father -- Mark Donohue. The bungalow is where team manager Chuck Cantwell and the teams public relations director Dan Luginbuhl worked along with secretary Maryann ODonnell. He was on for a second appearance at the Glen, but a practice accident saw Mark being replaced by David Hobbs. Donohue, too, recognized the accomplishment as something of a walk-off home run for his career, briefly retiring following his IROC championship before returning later that year with Penske to compete in the final two Formula 1 races. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/21/archives/mark-donohue-returns-to-die.html. He went over 180 miles per hour for the first time and it wasnt on the chart, so nobody knew how fast he went. Her . 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. "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. 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. 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. Goldberg Segalla, LLP, Albany (Mark Donohue of counsel), for respondents. In an interview then, he talked of his disappointing grand prix showing. Mark Donohue returning from retirement to lead Roger Penske's Formula 1 team looked like a perfect match. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. 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. A headache resulted, however, and worsened. He became a great friend of mine, Penske said in an IMS tribute to Donohue. this email address already registerd with us. 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. The front of the car was torn away, leaving Donohue, still strapped to his safety seat, with his legs dangling outside the car. He was killed during a practice session for the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix. I didnt expect that at all, David Donohue, 51, said. The rookies looking to make their mark on F1 in 2023, The rookies looking to make their mark on F1 in 2023 In his career, Donohue started 311 races and won 119 of them, a winning average of 38 percent. We started with a Lola 4-wheel drive, and in 1971 we got a McLaren. I did everything I could to keep up. [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. 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. 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. He tinkered his way all through Pingry School, Brown University and a job as a mechanical engineer with the Pulverizing Machinery Corporation in Summit. The team was third at Daytona and second at Sebring. Found a bug?SuggestionsCopyrightNeed help?Business DevelopmentGeneral inquiry, PopScreen - Video Search, Bookmarking and Discovery Engine. His fathers absence from the family took its toll, and eventually the marriage dissolved into divorce. Donohues father was a patent attorney. The guy never gained that flashy status. But if his father, Mark Sr., a successful patent lawyer, never envisaged a racing career for his son, neither cid young Mark. [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. In 1967 he became the USRRC champion, winning six out of eight races. Donohues dad was often racing in the United States or Canada for a fledgling operation called Penske Racing. 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. We used to clean our garage out every night, and that was something people didnt understand.. However, like most race drivers in the various top racing series around the world, he had lived an outright lot of life. Then they put both cars in the race, number 15 and 16, one car being 250 pounds lighter. Donohue began the 1975 Formula 1 season as a 38-year-old rookie and the oldest driver on the grid. His average speed around the 2.66-mile (4.28km) high-banked oval was 221.120mph (355.858km/h). . 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. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker. Airport would have sent a stock Camaro flopping around. 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. (He was operated on at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta by Drs. Were far from having too much horsepower, he asserted. The highlight of his entire career was winning the . A bad week or the dark horse from F1 testing? He died from severe head injuries sustained August 16 in practice for the Austrian Grand Prix at Graz, Austria. 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. He tried to be a team manager; that didnt work. We started to look at data Mark was an engineer at Brown (University), and that was certainly part of it, but we were committed. Search instead in Creative? He approaches things the same way. Donohue was the driver of Penskes first Brickyard effort in 1969. I always said driving wasn't really a dangerous situation. There was little question then that Donohue, who would testdrive the new car and help supervise its development, would come out of retirement. Bahrain GP: F1 technical images direct from the pitlane, What we learned from Friday practice at F1's 2023 Bahrain GP, What we learned from Friday practice at F1's 2023 Bahrain GP In fact, Mark often wasnt the engineer at all. Donohue was a . How Gulf deal has boosted Williams's F1 commercial strategy, Why F1's nearly man is refreshed and ready for his return, Why F1's nearly man is refreshed and ready for his return 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. 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. 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. 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. And, according to Cox, Roger certainly did his part in coming up with next projects.. It was an epic stomping; he led over 361 miles that day, and in perusing the finishing order Bobby Unser finished fourth while West Series drivers Ray Elder, Jimmy Insolo, Jack McCoy and Richard White, all of whom made regular stops at Riverside, finished third, fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively it was clear this was a race decided by the interlopers, the kind of race we no longer see in modern-day NASCAR, where drivers have been cross-trained and educated on technology and data to the point each race contains 38 different versions of the Donohue prototype. Sometimes, I would leave early and take my own car to the airport because I didnt want to put up with him. His first marriage ended in divorce and some friends blamed racing. 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. Donohue co-drove in the No. Mark returned [a year later] because he realized he wasnt good at anything else. 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. Although photographs of Donohue with the more aerodynamic 1974 Matador coupe exist and are published, he did not drive it in competition. In 1974, he quit driving and became president of Penske Racing. 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. 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. Hed drive the truck, hed drive the race car, he would work on the car. Choose a Username Available! 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. One track marshal was killed by the crash and another seriousy injured. This time, the interlopers would leave no doubt as they set out to prove their reputations for calculated dominance. As one of the best test drivers and developers in the business, he would get the car ready, then Penske would have to turn it over to a younger hotshot. But the intended hotshot, Peter Revson, was killed in a grandprix accident in March, 1974. 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. Except I knew it wouldnt last, recalls Penske Racings timer/scorer Judy Stropus. 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". But he was still, a great driver. The winner of the 1972 Indianapolis 500 and the Can Am in l973. When Donohue took the Ferrari to Le Mans, the car attained only 205 mph on the straight versus the Porsche 917s 235 mph. He was a winner at the 24 Hours of Daytona and in stock cars. Donohues degree from Brown in Mechanical Engineering got him a job designing filters for air conditioners -- not quite what he had in mind. First to go was his marriage, says Argetsinger. 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. And my wife gave me permission, so when something like that happens you have to go. 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. He was one of the best American roadracers in history, but his biggest triumph was on the oval at Indianapolis, where in 1972 he won the 500. 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. . My involvement in racing has been like a jigsaw puzzle, David Donohue told Autoweek. His son, David, told me: The legend was that my dad and Roger conquered all. Mark Donohue races to the win at the the 1972 Indy 500. [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 . 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 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. Instead, the Racemark GT had Bedard, also a racer, showering praise. 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 sustained a fatal head injury from the crash. Losing a driver is something you cant replace. I was at Lime Rock, Connecticut, Donohue said. The hotrod phenomenon came East from California and caught me up in it, he once explained. When police found him about three hours later, his . 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. 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 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. . Czarnecki saw the brilliance, humor and darkness -- all part of Donohues character. He wanted to show he could do it all again. 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. Seeing it in real life when you come into the museum here, I know one thing -- I fit in it really well. 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. He said so himself many times. 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. How famous was Mark . 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 Clark, J. Penske warned that any disqualification would have the potential of motivating Chevrolet to pull all support for the Trans-Am series. We were the college kids with the crew cuts and the polished wheels, Penske said. Revson's death made it almost inevitable that Donohue would come out of retirement. [12] In his first race for Penske, at Watkins Glen in June 1966, Donohue qualified well but crashed the car at the top of a hill, destroying it. His 59 wins remain the most of any driver for Team Penske. A bad week or the dark horse from F1 testing? The 1975 season turned out to be a difficult one for Donohue and Penske. 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. You never saw him in an argument with anybody. 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. 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. By clicking on 'Join' button, you confirm that you are over 13 years of age and agree to the Terms of Service & Privacy Policy.