The Unfair Advantage

Donohue, while refraining from sidetracking into his personal life, nonetheless comes across as a whole human being, complete with anxiety, jealousy, hopes, fears, enthusiasm, disappointment, pride and competitive spirit. I would have liked to work with this man who was a gifted driver and a great pioneer in motorsports.

His achievements were many and hereof his innumerous victories and role in building the Penske empire merely a part of the story. Donohue developed the "American", a.k.a. modern driving technique of braking, turning and accelerating in one smooth integrated action. He made strides in understanding aerodynamics, suspension geometry, "bumpsteer", tyre applications and basically all other aspects of driving and setting up a race car. He drove almost all on-road racecar types of the era, including Nascar, Canam, Transam, LeMans, Formula 1, IROC, Formula A - unlike most other drivers, he were involved in several completely different race programs in the same season; a tremendous effort.

Reading this book will give you an appreciation of the complexity of setting up and keeping a race car competitive. It will not teach you how to do it but you may just have the interest to find out once you have been smitten by Donohue's indomitable thirst for knowing what makes a car do what under which circumstances and what you in turn can do to get the most out of it.


Great insight into the complexity of motor racing   January 6, 2002
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Being thirtysomething and more familiar with European than American motor racing (for inexplicable reasons there seem to be a great divide there, as also Mark Donohue alludes to) this was not first on my list of must-read's. However, unable to escape continued references in Autoweek and picking up interest in technique and technical aspects through own amateur formula racing I decided to buy this book in November - with no regret.

Donohue, while refraining from sidetracking into his personal life, nonetheless comes across as a whole human being, complete with anxiety, jealousy, hopes, fears, enthusiasm, dissapointment, pride and competitive spirit. I would have liked to work with this man who was a gifted driver and a great pioneer in motorsports.

His achievements were many and hereof his innumerous victories and role in building the Penske empire merely a part of the story. Donohue developed the "American", a.k.a. modern driving technique of braking, turning and accelerating in one smooth integrated action. He made strides in understanding aerodynamics, suspension geometry, "bumpsteer", tyre applications and basically all other aspects of driving and setting up a race car. He drove allmost all on-road racecar types of the era, including Nascar, Canam, Transam, LeMans, Formula 1, IROC, Formula A - unlike most other drivers, he was involved in several completely different race programs in the same season; a tremendous effort.

Reading this book will give you an appreciation of the complexity of setting up and keeping a race car competitive. It will not teach you how to do it but you may just have the interest to find out once you have been smitten by Donohue's indomitable thirst for knowing what makes a car do what under which circumstances and what you in turn can do to get the most out of it.