Born in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Donohue grew up in Summit,[7] graduated from the Pingry School in Hillside, and entered Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

[citation needed] Hansgen arranged for Donohue to become his teammate in 1965, co-driving a Ferrari 275 at the 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race,[2] which they finished in 11th place.

[10] In 1966, thanks to his friendship with Hansgen, word quickly spread to the Ford Motor Company about the young driver.

Hansgen died while testing the GT40 in preparation for Le Mans so Donohue partnered with Australian Paul Hawkins.

[12] In his first race for Penske, at Watkins Glen in June 1966, Donohue qualified well but crashed the car at the top of a hill, destroying it.

The two drivers disagreed on many aspects of racing and car setup, but as a team were able to muster a fourth-place finish in the endurance classic.

Donohue began his Trans-Am series campaign in 1967, winning three of twelve races in a Roger Penske-owned Chevrolet Camaro.

Had there been a Drivers' Championship in place at the time, he would have won three of them (his last in 1971) while driving Camaros in 1968 and 1969, and an AMC Javelin in 1971, all for Roger Penske Racing.

[citation needed] During a post-race inspection, race stewards discovered that the car was 250 pounds lighter than the 2,800-pound minimum weight requirement.

He finished the race in his McLaren-Offy setting a record speed of over 162 mph (261 km/h),[16] which stood for twelve years.

In the 1972–1973 season, driving an AMC Matador for Penske Racing in NASCAR's top division, the Winston Cup Series, Donohue won the season-opening event at Riverside.

The Porsche engineers obliged, but the new ducts interfered with the bodywork closure pins that attached body panels to the car.

Coming out of turn seven at about 150 mph (240 km/h), the rear bodywork flew off the car, which became extremely unstable, lifted off the ground, and tumbled down the track.

I imagine it must feel like watching another man in bed with your wife.Porsche, Penske, and Donohue quickly started the development of the 917-30, complete with a reworked aerodynamic "Paris" body and a 5.4-liter turbocharged flat-12 engine whose output could be adjusted from about 1,100 to 1,500 bhp[citation needed] by turning a boost knob in the cockpit.

Donohue held the record for 11 years, until it was broken by Rick Mears at Michigan International Speedway.

In winning the first IROC championship, Donohue beat the best racing drivers of that era from all of the major championships, such as Denny Hulme, Richard Petty, A. J. Foyt, Emerson Fittipaldi, Bobby Allison, David Pearson, Peter Revson, Bobby Unser, and Gordon Johncock.

In addition, the horrific events at the 1973 Indianapolis 500 and the subsequent death of his friend, Swede Savage, pushed him to quit.

Donohue previously had debuted in Formula One in the 1971 season on September 19, 1971, with a Penske-sponsored McLaren car entered by the White Racing privateer team[19] at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, finishing on the podium in third place.

At the Austrian Grand Prix, Donohue's career, along with Roger Penske's Formula One aspirations, took a tragic turn.

Donohue recently had arrived in Austria for the Austrian Grand Prix at the Österreichring race track following the successful closed-course speed record attempt at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama just a few days earlier.

During a practice session for the race, Donohue lost control of his March after a tire failed, sending him into the catch fencing at Turn 1 (known as Vöest Hügel Kurve).

It is said that Donohue's head struck either a catch fencing post or the bottom of the wood frame for an advertising billboard located alongside of the racetrack.

Dononue's estate was involved in litigation against Penske and Goodyear that was settled in 1986, claiming tire failure killed Donohue.

[21] In 2003, in commemoration of Penske Racing's 50th NASCAR win, Nextel Cup driver Ryan Newman drove a Dodge Intrepid painted to resemble Donohue's 1973 AMC (with a No.

Donohue chronicled his entire racing career in the book, The Unfair Advantage (co-written with noted motorsports and engineering journalist Paul Van Valkenburgh).

This was not merely a celebrity autobiography, but a detailed, step-by-step record of the engineering approach he took to getting the absolutely highest performance from every car he drove, always looking for that elusive "unfair advantage".

Donohue (along with Penske) were pioneers in many rights, some as notable as the use of a skidpad as a tool for developing and perfecting race car suspension designs and setups.