Mark Donohue’s image in the racing circles is one of being the epitome of professional. He’s the prototype Penske driver. The pro who is always consistent, never out of line, always prepared.
But it wasn’t always like this, Mark started as a complete novice quite late and worked his way up from being a novice who was ridiculed to the leading professional driver in America at the time. Mark’s approach to racing developed together with Roger Penske’s to give the foundation of what is today Penske in both racing and in his giant business empire. Mark and Roger were a formidable team.
The book can be quite technical and by that, I mean with the contemporary technology at the time – early-mid 70s. Mark was never one to reject new technologies fully, he was always leaving at least a little space for them in his mind. This allowed him to be incredibly creative in outsmarting the competition, he was looking to take every little advantage, be it technology or tactic from other fields and apply it to the full extent in his own racing. He would always take something and aim to make it as big as possible of an unfair advantage for as long as possible. This is essentially the modern racing mindset at the top. Mark was a visionary at the time. He had a never-ending supply of curiosity. People like him need very patient and almost equality curious and hungry teammates. Most people would never endure such a plethora of crazy experimentation and tinkering, the insane chase for finding the root cause of every single failure and success. He would always win and then feel afraid of how the competition can find something new on them. It seems to have been a never-ending chase for innovation, perfection, and learning.
Interestingly, during his whole career, Mark was married with kids and yet his wife was supporting him in his insane racing endeavors which ultimately cost him his life. This simply shows the difference in mindsets between the late 60s/early 70s and nowadays. It was taken for granted that men can die and their wives will have to find the strength to continue without them. He would gamble their house and his secure job chasing his dream and passion of racing professionally.
It’s great to see how Roger Penske wasn’t always Penske Perfect. He’s one of my all-time heroes and examples in life. Sadly, the nature of his business is mostly in the US means that Penske has only just 1 win in F1, but no doubt that if there were supersonic private jets… there would be quite a few World Championships won by Penske’s organization. But still, in the beginning, Roger was probably too naive and trusting with some people. I guess, later on in life he started to require the same high standards he’s used to performing at from all those who work for him. When your confidence grows and you take a few bad lessons where suppliers or partners don’t deliver, you tend to learn pretty quickly and be less trusting and more judgemental. Having a close circle of friends and acquaintances that can hold up to these standards and push you even further. Yet, of course, Penske nowadays is known for his extreme loyalty and at least in the IndyCar and wider motorsport community, he’s helped a lot of people without taking any credit for it.
One thing that I found very interesting is the way Mark was able to blend into different cultures. He was this college-educated driver, one of very few, but he was always finding ways to work and collaborate with a very humble attitude with wild traditional Southerners, with overconfident Brits or with the very methodical Germans. It’s very strange to see how he was always having doubts about himself. Here is this incredible driver who is just not only very fast, very reliable, but also an incredibly capable engineer who was fantastic at sorting cars out, developing winners from terrible shit boxes and yet, he was all through his career doubting his abilities behind the wheel. Before Mario Andretti, he was the driver capable of winning in ANY type of car! It’s incredible, in one season he would develop, race and win with 5-6-7 different cars! Even back in the day, no matter how much the other drivers were involved in the development process, none of them were effectively the team manager who is deciding the setup, the strategy and then organizing the team. All of his competitors had the luxury to concentrate far more on the driving than Mark Donohue could ever afford to. I mean, he was calling Denny Hulme as lazy… while he’s regarded as a very good development driver, but Mark’s standards were simply that much higher.
For me, Mark Donohue is the kind of driver that is very, very rare even nowadays. He’s probably one of the very first drivers who strived to achieve perfection by being the complete driver. He reminds me a lot of Fernando Alonso, but a Fernando Alonso with a very high social intelligence, someone who can adapt and push the right buttons of people and someone who’s far less conflict-prone or egoistical. Was he better than AJ Foyt? Certainly. Far more diverse and technical. Was he better than Mario Andretti? It will be a stretch and unfair to compare them, but most probably yes. His engineering background was simply a giant Unfair Advantage for him.
Under Mark’s watch, Penske Racing was able to successfully race and win at a giant number of championships and effectively established itself as the leading motorsport team in the US in a very, very short period of time – just 5 years!
Donohue needed to win IROC because he needed the money! Here, he’s demonstrating the typical 911 balance: soft rear suspension and front roll bar almost lifting the inner front wheel off the ground while cornering.
There was one big issue that Mark wrote very little in his book and that’s his deal-making skills. He wasn’t a good wheeler-dealer… he was the most valuable driver in the US without a question. Bobby Unser had a similar reputation as an engineering driver, but Uncle Bobby certainly wasn’t someone who could work with most people, he wasn’t a team player. It was only team Bobby Unser for him and nothing else. So, Mark was that complete driver and yet he had financial instability. He split up with his wife, no wonder considering his schedule, but he also won tons of races including the Indy 500 and when he retired, he worked for a year just as a team manager and then came back as a driver because of the money. Clearly, I think in this situation Roger Penske should have paid Mark way more handsomely. There are a number of lines in the book where Mark has duly noted how Roger takes a Porsche for himself, makes gifts to his wife, etc., but the guy who’s doing the most work doesn’t get paid very well. Donohue was no doubt very loyal, may be too loyal as he would have made waaaaaaaay more money at Porsche or Ferrari! But ultimately, this financial insecurity forced him back into driving and ultimately his unfortunate death. If Roger Penske had duly been paying Mark what he deserves, then he would have stayed as team manager and Penske would have still been in F1. Mark was instrumental at setting up the F1 team and just 1 year after his death, John Watson won Penske’s first and only Grand Prix. Later on, Penske exited F1 because there was nobody to run the team basically, it was too much hassle. If Mark had been alive, then that problem would have never occurred. Potentially, Penske was a championship-winning outfit. No question about that, the team was very much ahead of its time. Mark Donohue was a master of efficient innovation with a never give up attitude.
For the racing nuts, Mark Donohue’s biography is a classic read. It remains so and it’s very inspiring. This book is basically the diary of an intensely competitive innovator. It’s a mindset diary, but it can become very boring on the technical side because these cars are just very, very different. Still, I enjoyed immensely the technical aspect and the way he is telling the story of how the team or he came up with the technical solutions. Also, because the cars he drove had very basic aerodynamics, it was nice to see how they were balancing cars just by the mechanical setup and very rarely working with the dampers that are now so important in modern racing.
I didn’t know that the hated by me style of braking in a straight line was called European. I hate driving cars requiring such style with a burning passion. His explanation of how people are mixing oversteer with understeer is amazing! Very often, as in cars wanting to brake in a straight line, you’re braking and then the front doesn’t bite – it’s stubborn like a pig for a split second. Unknowingly though, you’ve put a lot more steering lock and suddenly you’ve got instantly more roll and you’ve broken down the traction of the front tires. Of course, a tenth later as you see yourself missing the apex, you apply more brake pressure and with the roll – the outside rear locks and it causes the car to spin. Your initial reaction is that you’ve got snap oversteer. But this can’t be further from the truth. You’ve got understeer. If you think you’ve got snap oversteer, you’ll simply make changes that won’t have any effect, in fact, might worsen the situation. But instead, if you cure the understeer and simply drive with less steering lock you won’t reach the moment where the rear wheels are unloaded under heavy braking. There is no snap oversteer, it’s cured by decreasing the entry understeer under braking.
Mark was one of the first to pioneer the trail braking driving style. It’s just so much more natural and flowing than slowing down in a straight line and then turning. It’s a much more complex and rich driving style that every modern racing driver must be capable of using. Sadly, at least in Bulgaria, driving instructors are only teaching students using this driving style and it’s very dangerous in many situations. I think 99% of the drivers on the road are still using a century-old driving style… it’s madness!
Of course, Assetto Corsa has the fearsome Porsche 917/30K in the Sunoco Penske livery… the guy had balls! It’s such a riot this car. I don’t know a current driver or person who would have the balls to drive this car and isn’t mentally insane. Different generation. The war must have had a huge impact on the upbringing of these drivers. This car was 1200 bhp and his legs were in front of the front axle(he broke them and could have died on 2 other occasions with it), meaning any impact involving the front would mean broken legs! It was survivorship with a large dose of competitiveness. A fine line to walk.
One last note. Now we’ve got the Hollywood movie Ferrari vs Ford. I’ve only watched the trailer and as much as I appreciate that movies make racing more popular, I also far more disapprove of Hollywood’s way of skewing things up. Nowhere in this book or in the many other documentaries I’ve watched or books that I’ve read, even specifically on Cobra and Ferrari, there have been teammates beating the crap out of each other in a fistfight. AJ Foyt was famous for going into such matches, but it was mostly against people from a much lower status in his mind, like journalists. Also, racing cars don’t have hand brakes, Mr. Damon.
Mark Donohue was part of the Ford Cobra team that won Le Mans and it was a very professional effort. There’s a whole chapter on this book about the development and racing of the GT40s. Sadly, Hollywood portrays racing as a bunch of idiots without brains going at each other’s throat. I guess, or rather… I’m convinced that Hollywood are a bunch of homophobic idiots with alcohol, drug and rape problems. Mostly good looking idiots lucky enough to be paid millions for trying to repeat a line correctly about a 100 times while being filmed.
I don’t watch movies. Just read or listen to real books. Movies are only based on real events or books… and then some sick guy’s fantasy has taken over!
Ivan On Racing 