No One Like Captain Nice

Captain Nice didn’t need all of that fuss and bother. He could set up a car on his own off of pure instinct, and drive it to victory with even purer skill.Mark Donohue was born and raised in New Jersey, growing up to attend the Ivy League’s Brown University–forging him into one of racing’s best-educated and well-mannered personalities. He first tried racing during his senior year of college in a 1957 Corvette, winning the first event he entered in1959 before he left Brown with his mechanical engineering degree.Just two years later, Donohue won the Sports Car Club of America Championship. He would claim multiple SCCA events for the next several years before racing giant Roger Penske recognized Donohue’s talent in 1966.Splitting time with Penske and Ford, Donohue would race the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Trans-Am Series, the United States Road Racing Championships, the Can-Am Series, Indycar, and NASCAR. Donohue would win the Indianapolis 500 in 1972, and he’d claim Penske Racing’s first NASCAR win at Riverside, Calif. during the 1972-73 season.Throughout his career, Donohue would be associated with machines ranging from legendary muscle cars to refined European makes. He’d race the AMC Javelin, the Chevrolet Camaro, the Ford GT40, Ferrari 512, the McLaren M16, and the Porsche 911.Beyond his driving skill, what set Captain Nice apart from his rivals was his engineering knowledge and mechanical instincts. While with Penske, Donohue would nudge the racing team’s boffins aside to tinker, refine, and perfect the power plants pushing him to victory. Whether it was dipping his cars in acid baths to reduce weight and minimize drag or mixing and matching parts to improve balance on the track, Donohue’s innovations were so effective his rivals sometimes accused him (unfairly and unsuccessfully) of cheating.Sadly, it was Donohue’s grit and bravado that would lead to his untimely death at the age of 38. Only a couple years removed from a short-lived retirement, Donohue was in the midst of F1 testing at Österreichring, Austria when a tire failed. He lost control of his car on the track’s fastest corner, and his car ended up in the catch fence.The crash was violent enough for debris to kill a track marshal, but Donohue walked away. Still, he would complain of a worsening headache that night. Though he shook off the wreck as just another day in the life of a racer, inspection of the crash revealed he hit his head against a fence pole, resulting in a severe brain bleed. The one-time Captain Nice fell into a coma at the hospital and never recovered, dying on August 19, 1975.In the 50 years since his on-track heroics, Donohue became a racing legend for veteran fans of multiple circuits. Few drivers can lay claim to racing and winning everywhere from F1 to Indycar to NASCAR, and he’s remembered as one of the on-track performers who built the Penske Racing empire.In our gadget-obsessed, highly specialized world in which we often rely on technology more than our own instincts and wisdom, in an era when people are discouraged to defy danger and risk their lives for glory, it’s unlikely we’ll see an experimental performer, engineer, and all-around nice guy like Mark Donohue ever again.