US racing category nominee #1: Mark Donohue

The professional

Vol LXXIV No. 7 – July 1998

Mark Donohue was not simply quick, his approach to racing changed the sport. Sam Posey, his friend, rival and team-mate, remembers his too short life.

Twenty six years ago, on May 28, 1972, a driver with a degree in mechanical engineering from Brown University won the Indianapolis 500. His name was Mark Donohue.

It was a time of change, a time when technology was transforming the American racing scene, often with Donohue himself in the vanguard. He was something new, a gunslinger who also happened to have designed the gun. He was admired, feared or emulated, depending on your perspective. You knew, seeing him with his briefcase, his charts and formulas, that racing would never be the same. When you heard he was working so hard that he was sleeping on the floor of the shop, you knew the days of racing as a romantic hobby were over. He made you look at yourself and wonder just how committed you really were.

Read the full story from July 1998