Remembering Mark

The spirit of Mark Donohue is still alive in Penske Racing.
He built up that team and his legacy is still with us.
It was a very sad day when he left us.

I remember witnessing his effort to tame the Porsche 917 turbo during a private test session at Paul Ricard. There was no doubt about his driving talent.

 

I remember and cherish my opportunity to meet, talk to him and shake his hand when I was a child race car lover....at a sun oil luncheon.

 

All true.

 

One of Americas best. Probably the best.

Motorsports lost a giant that day.


I reread his book a couple of years ago. Still a great read.

 

+1 to all

"The unfair advantage" remains as one of my bibles to this day.

Because it wasn't "unfair", it was out-thinking the other guys. Wonderful stuff.

With no disrespect to Penske, can we even imagine what he and Chapman could have achieved?

RIP Mark
Ian

 

"Captain Nice" ... remember when he was called that? Never met Mark, but I was a fan of his when I was a kid.
Hey R. P. & Tim Cindric: next year for the 40th anniversary of Mark's passing, how about running your cars in the old Sunoco blue & yellow paint schemes for the Indy race closest to Aug 19th? It would be a dignified way to salute one of the cornerstones of Penske Racing. Just an idea from a fan of racing and its history.
David Lind

 

Colin was the right guy in the right place at the right time not to mention I don't think there was any room for any more cooks in his kitchen.

Roger on the other hand is very different. He is a genius at picking someone for a job and letting them at it. Roger made the business work and Mark was the creative one and each had the total respect of the others work product.

Roger took a desert racer and put him in Indy cars because "He knows how to win" and 4 Indy wins later most agreed Rick Mears knew how to win.

 

Understood. Certainly Colin didn't suffer fools gladly, to be polite.

However, if he respected your engineering knowledge, as I'm sure he would have with Mark, he was totally open to listening (& learning).

I remember one night the Lotus guys saying Mario asked for "1/2 turn more negative at the rear", and Colin simply telling them to do it - This was unusual as he'd generally want his drivers to tell him what it was doing, and he'd make the decisions as to what to do.

["Negative" being camber before anyone asks....]

Cheers,
Ian

 

I think that if Mark hadn't died so tragically early & needlessly, he and Roger Penske could've had a serious chance at developing the first championship winning american F1 team.

 

I have never had doubt that team would have done quite well in F1 given the chance.




Reading your post made me do some math. Mark has been gone for a year longer than he was alive but he is remembered by those of us who watched him race. Not a bad legacy.

 

What a great, hard to believe he's been gone so long.

 

I remember sitting in the hotel bar in Riverside after a USRRC race that Mark had just won.

He was sitting in a booth with three gorgeous gals. I remember thinking "Now there's a guy who knows to bring spares to a race"

 

Tell him his dad had a lot of very big fans.

 

Do you know where you were on the day he died? I do, like many events that you are interested in. He was my hero all of his racing life with me, and I have lots of memories of him. I have his book signed by him in my library.

 

I am sorry I missed this thread earlier, but I echo the thoughts of others here as well as having so many memories of watching him in the pits, practicing, qualifying, and racing in addition to following him in print.

I saw David at The Quail giving rides in the 918 Spyder to prospective buyers.

Nothing against, Andretti, Foyt, Revson and others, but Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Mark Donohue are my American Motorsports MVP's. Regrettably, I only saw Mark actually race live so he has the most special place for me. Sadly we only have one of the 3 left.