The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

1959. While in college he began racing a 1957 Corvette, winning his first event, a hillclimb in New Hampshire. His first job out of college was de- signing air conditioning filters, but the weekends in 1960 were filled with rac- ing his Elva Courier. He entered eleven races that year, taking four wins and four seconds; earning the Re- gional SCCA E-Production Champi- onship in the process. The next year he drove the Elva to the SCCA E-Produc- tion National Championship with ten wins in 16 races. That happened to be the same year two men, Walt Hansgen and Roger Penske (both would figure prominently in young Donohue’s fu- ture) were duking it out in the SCCA D-Modified class, with Penske ulti- mately winning the 1961 SCCA D- Modified National Championship. Also a New Jersey native and 18 years older, Walt Hansgen took an in- terest in the young shoe from his back yard; Hansgen arranged for his em- ployer, Inskip Motors in Providence, Rhode Island, to prepare and provide an MGB for Donohue to race at the 1964 Under 2 Liter Bridgehampton 500KM where Donohue brought the car home 8th OA, 5th GT 2.0. As an aside, Hansgen won the main event the next day for Mecom Racing in a Scarab MK IV Chevrolet. That was the race where Shelby American was chasing FIA points in an effort to beat Ferrari for the Manu- facturers Championship in 1964. To that end, Shelby Cobras, led by Ken Miles in CSX2127, finished 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th OA on their way to 1st to 6th sweep of the GT+3.0 class. Earlier in the year Donohue had been hired as a design engineer by Jack Griffith, the progenitor of the TVR Griffith, which would shoe-horn a 289 Ford engine into the TVR Grantura body. Donohue had been rac- ing a stock Grantura since the 1962 Sebring 12 Hours where he and Jay Signore finished 25th OA, 8th GT. Donohue got his first taste of a Cobra in September 1963 when he drove Griffith’s CSX2031 to 1st OA AP at a race at Lime Rock. His best result in CSX2031 was 1st OA at the SCCA National AP race at VIR in April 1964, that day beating Graham Shaw in CSX2129 and Hal Keck in CSX2127. 1965 dawned with Hansgen and his protégé co-driving a Ferrari 250LM at the Sebring 12 Hours where the pair came home in 11th OA, 4th GTP; the class won that day by Ken Miles and Bruce McLaren in GT103. Donohue found a ride in a GT350 (5R105) in SCCA National events driving for Archway Motors (Baltimore MD) in which he earned a Regional Champi- onship and an invitation to the year- end ARRC at Daytona (DNF due to a flat tire). Donohue also won a Regional National Championship in Formula C in a Lotus 20B, whetting his appetite for open wheel racing. At year-end 1965 we find Walt Hansgen and his protégé at the afore- mentioned Ford winner’s banquet. The introduction to the Ford brass worked and Hansgen and Donohue were paired in P/1031 at Daytona (3rd OA) and a month later at Sebring in P/1032 (2nd OA). They certainly would have been paired again in this car at LeMans, but for Hansgen’s untimely death in April. Roger Penske approached Donohue at Hansgen’s funeral with an offer to join Penske Racing and one of the great partnerships in racing ensued in 1966. Mark Donohue soon found him- self working 18-hour days and sleep- ing in a room above Penske Racing headquarters in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. The only detours from Penske Racing for the rest of Dono- hue’s career were the three races in 1966 for Ford, including the subject DNF and two races for Ford in 1967: a DNF at Daytona in February 1967 with Peter Revson in P/1016 and 4th OA at LeMans in June with Bruce McLaren in J-5. Otherwise, it was all Penske until 1975, during which time Mark Dono- hue won 59 races for his boss includ- ing 28 races in Trans-Am, 12 races in the USRRC, 10 in Can-AM, 3 races in IndyCars and 1 in NASCAR. Dono- hue’s honors included the Trans-Am Driver’s Championship in 1968 and 1969 in Camaros and 1971 in a Javelin. He was Rookie of the Year at the 1969 Indianapolis 500 (2nd OA) and won the great race in 1972. He was the Can-Am Driver’s Champion in 1973 after winning 11 of 13 races in a Porsche 917-30 which he largely devel- oped. In 1974 he won the inaugural IROC series with three wins in four races in a Porsche RSR. By then two broken marriages and the demands of constant race prep and racing had taken their toll and he re- tired after the 1973 Can-Am season. He had become “Dark Monohue” and he needed a break. The IROC races were for fun, but he was otherwise out of the game until Penske lured him back in 1974 to chase F1. The plan was for Donohue to help develop the car for a younger Peter Revson to race, but when Revson was horribly killed at South African Grand Prix in March 1974 it became clear the Donohue was going to be the driver. He had run one race previously, in 1971 when he finished 3rd OA at the Canadian Grand Prix in a McLaren chassis. The new Penske PC1 chassis for 1975 proved to be troublesome and Donohue managed only a couple of 5th place finishes. Midway through the 1975 season Penske dropped his own chassis in favor of a March 751- Ford which Donohue drove in July at the GP Great Britain (5th OA). His next outing was the Austrian Grand Prix in August 1975. A tire blew in practice at 160 mph and his March 751 was launched through four catch fences and a number of bill- boards before coming to rest. Donohue suffered a serious brain injury and died at the hospital the next day with his third wife of eight months, his fa- ther and Roger Penske at his bedside. He was 38. So there we have a brief story of LeMans in 1966 and some details about the men who drove the GT40s that year. Mario Andretti is the sole survivor of this group of drivers. It was a good year at LeMans for Ford: their cars finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd. But it demonstrate that there was more work to do. All told, eleven GT40s DNF’d that day. The J-car was in the wings and the 1967 race at LeMans was a mere twelve months away. Ford would go back to France one more time. The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 75