The Genes Fit : Driver David Donohue Hopes to Emulate the Success of His Late Father, Former Indy 500 Champion Mark Donohue

When you see David Donohue at the racetrack, you don’t need to be told whose son he is.

The same crew-cut hair style, the same cherubic look, and the same wry humor and friendly intensity in his conversation make David, 26, the image of his father, the late Mark Donohue.

David hopes that some of the Donohue genes will help him move up the racing ladder the way his father did, although he admits he is sometimes overwhelmed when friends from Mark’s era tell him of his father’s exploits.

“Sometimes it makes me feel like I’m the son of Superman,” Donohue said.

Mark Donohue won the 1972 Indianapolis 500, the 1973 Can-Am and three Trans-Am championships while driving for Roger Penske. He was 38 when he died Aug. 9, 1975, of head injuries suffered in a crash while practicing for the Grand Prix of Austria.

David Donohue will drive a four-door BMW sedan Saturday in a 30-minute Bridgestone Supercar championship race as part of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. It will be the second round of the International Motor Sports Assn.-sanctioned series and will pit Donohue’s BMW against the world’s fastest sports cars, such as Porsche, Corvette, Nissan 300ZX and Pontiac Firebird.

Among his competitors will be actor Paul Newman, driving a Lotus Esprit X180R.

Donohue won the pole for the season opener last month at Sebring, Fla., 25 years after his father had won the pole on the same track.

“I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally begin measuring up to the standards

he set,” the younger Donohue said. “But the fact that he set his pole shortly after having the car run over his foot in the pits should serve to keep me from getting a swelled head.”

It was Donohue’s first pole in a professional racing series. He then started fourth in the Supercar series’ random-draw starting grid and after dropping back as far as eighth on the first lap, rallied to finish second behind Peter Farrell in a Mazda RX-7.

David was 9 and his parents were divorced when his father was killed, so he has little recollection of Mark’s racing career.

“Most of my memories of my dad are of my brother and me on his boat, his time away from the track,” David said. “The only time I remember being at the track when he was driving was when our mom took us to Pocono (in 1971) and he won. I think we were with him in the victory circle, but I was only 3 at the time.”

It wasn’t until 1990, when David and his brother, Michael, accepted a plaque for their father’s election to the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in Novi, Mich., that Donohue--after getting a degree from Lehigh University--decided to embark on a professional racing career.

“I had been a driving-school instructor and did a little amateur racing around home (Malvern, Pa.), but colleagues of my father who were at the Hall of Fame ceremony encouraged me to do more,” he said. “I got a car from a friend of mine in the Porsche Club and started racing.”

In 1992, he branched out from club racing to drive in the Firestone Firehawk endurance series and also drove in eight Busch Grand National stock car races.

“Getting started is very difficult in NASCAR because it is so competitive,” he said. “There are so many drivers, so close together, it is tough to even qualify. You can see how competitive it is when (six-time Winston Cup champion) Dale Earnhardt couldn’t make the field at Richmond.

“I don’t know what the future holds. At the moment, all I want to do is help (car owner) Ed Arnold win the Supercar championship with his BMW. We’ve been testing at Firebird Raceway (in Chandler, Ariz.) and I’m looking forward to Long Beach.”

Long Beach’s 1.59-mile temporary course will be a rare experience for Donohue. Only once before has he raced on a wall-lined street circuit. Last year at Miami, he was knocked off course on the first lap.

“Driving between the walls was a tremendous rush, like riding a concrete roller coaster,” he said.

Donohue got his biggest rush last year when he was invited to drive the legendary yellow and blue Sunoco Porsche 917 30 Can-Am car that his father had driven 20 years ago. The car, one of motor racing’s most dominating vehicles, was flown from the Porsche museum in Stuttgart, Germany, for a historic car weekend at Laguna Seca.

“When people ask me to describe how I felt, all I can say is that nothing can describe the feeling,” he said. “I tell them to use their own imagination, to let it go as far as they want. It was just awesome, not just the car, but the emotions, knowing my father drove it on the same track.”

Donohue was to have taken a few exhibition laps, but he stayed out for eight trips around the Monterey Peninsula track.

“I was supposed do no more than four, but I decided to stay out until they waved me in . . . and even then, I thought of ignoring them,” he said.

“The German mechanics were worried I’d foul all 24 spark plugs and they’ve have to work overtime to replace them. And the German public relations people were worried I might go too fast and crash. They kept reminding me that the 917 was insured for $3 million in transit, but had no insurance while it was on the track.

“It was hard to keep from going too fast, it was so powerful. The mechanics had de-tuned it from 1,500 horsepower to 1,140, but even though I tiptoed around the corners in fear of locking up the brakes, my times were 13 seconds quicker than the BMW running as hard as I could. The car is 20 years old, but it still goes like a rocket. It was good for my self-confidence, finding out I could control a machine that my dad controlled.

“I also learned what it felt like to be a celebrity. When I was in the car, I felt the way the President of the United States must feel in the middle of a controversy. I could barely breath for all the people crushing around me. The car, that is. My wife couldn’t even get close.”

Donohue also drove the Penske Camaro in which his father won 10 of 12 Trans-Am races in 1968, including eight in a row.

“The cars are totally different, but the feelings were the same, knowing that these were two of the cars he drove to championships,” Donohue said. “It was a weekend I’ll never forget. I never grew up around racers, the way Michael Andretti and Al Unser Jr. did, but that one weekend made me feel much closer to my dad.”