Q&A: David Donohue.

David Donohue, son of racing legend Mark, is the latest edition to the 2001 Raybestos Rookie class in the NASCAR Busch Series, following his switch from the American Le Mans Series where he has plied his trade in recent years.

Donohue Jr's racing career began in 1992 on a limited basis, where he competed in all divisions from Showroom Stocks to NASCAR Busch, Craftsman Truck Series and CART Super Touring. Then, in 1994, he went racing full-time and won the first ever Super-Touring race in North America. This was followed, in 1997, by victory the CART Super Touring drivers' championship, before progressing to win the Le Mans 24 hours GT-2 class in 1998, driving a Dodge Viper.

Donohue then claimed five victories in the American Le Mans Series in 1999, and also posted podium finishes in the FIA GT championship. He started the 2001 season in the Craftsman Truck Series with Team Rensi Motorsports before joining Rensi's Team Marines Chevrolet outfit in the Busch series.

Q:
How did the opportunity come about for you to run for Raybestos Rookie of the Year honours in the NASCAR Busch series?

David Donohue:
It was really a matter of circumstances. The Craftsman Truck team was unsponsored at the time. I was Randy Tolsma's team-mate, which was fantastic. The team management decided to suspend operations because there was so much money being spent at the time. Team Rensi, in general, had geared up to do a lot at the beginning of the year and none of the sponsorship deals ever panned out, except for the Marines.com deal. Unfortunately, soon after that, Chad [Chaffin] was released from this programme, and that left them looking for a seat. I was hired by the team anyway, so it was just a natural placement.

Q:
With your family history, it would seem that you would have naturally ventured into open wheel racing. How did you find your way into NASCAR?

DD:
It's a long story. My background really is in sportscars, and that's where I've been my whole career. I had a brief stint in NASCAR in '92. I did a couple of Busch North and a couple of Busch South races. That was really kind of the tip of the iceberg. I went from doing a couple of showroom stock races right into the Busch Series. I was really the epitome of 'young and dumb'.

I've been fortunate enough to be able to make a living road racing, which is a tough thing to do nowadays. As far as picking my path to go into open wheel or NASCAR or whatever it may be, I'm not one that was able to pick my path. I had to take advantage of any opportunities I could create and just go with it. I love racing and it's what I know how to do. I couldn't find a real job back in '92; so racing seemed to be a relative easy thing to go to [laughs].

Like I said, finding jobs in road racing is tough to get paid. I was fortunate to keep finding opportunities. If I had a briefcase full of money, maybe the situation would be changed, maybe I would be in NASCAR anyway, maybe open wheel, who knows. I was testing for Dodge in '98 in the trucks - they had a test team and I had just come off winning the CART Super Touring Championship with them in the Stratus. That's where I got in front of some of these teams, and Troy Selberg, in particular, remembered me. Little did I know that a couple of tests in 98 would lead to an opportunity in 2001.

Q:
How big a difference is NASCAR racing versus the road racing that you've done in the past?

DD:
It depends on what angle you're looking at it from. As far as the cars themselves, they dramatically different, much more evenly matched in NASCAR. Everyone is on a level playing field, much more so than they are in road racing, where you have completely different designs that are out there and a lot of different tools to work from.

These cars [in NASCAR] are the most refined race cars in the world. Everything is tweakable and adjustable and these guys have been around it forever and they just have a gut instinct, some of them. A lot of people have sound engineering principles on why they do what they do. The cars are quite a bit different, but when it gets down to the people they're still driven by the same things. That's the real thrill for me as a driver is to be part of a team where you get along with everybody and you're working towards a common goal. You have a lot of lows, but hopefully you work towards a big high of success.

Q:
Is it hard to pick up the feel of the cars in NASCAR because they are so much heavier than sportscars? How big of an adjustment has that been for you?

DD:
That's a big adjustment because they do have such a different feel. It's something for me to overcome. The biggest problem in road racing, you can get a pretty good feel for it relatively quickly, then refine it as you get more seat time. You can toss a car around on a road course. With these things, you can't necessarily toss 'em around. And if you make a mistake, they're so big and heavy that just going to slide up and hit a wall and then you're done for the day. The cost of making a slight mistake is much higher than it tends to be in road racing.

Q:
Has your family heritage helped you in your racing career?

DD:
I'd be a fool to say that it didn't help me. I can call people in the Penske organisation for advice and I have the ability for people to remember my name because of who my father was. It has opened doors and at least caught the ear of people. It's helped on the PR side because it's a story, not some Joe Doe from some short track somewhere trying to make it and you never know if he will or not. It's been a definite advantage in that regard and it's allowed me to have more contacts than most people would at a much higher level.

Q:
Do you sometimes find yourself trying to get out from the shadow of your father?

DD:
Unfortunately, my father is not around to be under his shadow. I think guys like Michael Andretti and even Al [Unser] Jr, Dale Jarrett, folks where their fathers are still around - or more so if they're still racing while the son starts racing - there's much more of a shadow there.

When I first started getting into racing, my wife said to me 'try it because you'll be second guessing yourself for the rest of you life and if you don't make it in five years you'd better get a real job' [laughs].

She's realistic because there's a lot of guys that think they're going to go run the Indy 500 and they're still doing an SCCA E Production or whatever a little car in SCCA would be. The truth is they will probably never get there and they're spending every penny they make on it. They love racing, but they need to love it for what they're doing there and not have delusions of grandeur. She was afraid of that happening, and with the name like I have, being able to talk to these people, it's easy to get that delusion of grandeur. There's so much luck involved in this, as well as talent and situation and everything that you don't necessarily pave your own path. You've got to roll with the punches and take advantage of what opportunities come your way.

There's so many people still in racing, not just sportscars and Indy cars, but here in NASCAR as well, that knew [my father] and worked with him and knew him personally and professionally. They may only have a two-minute story, but you get a couple thousand two-minute stories and you get all these little dots and it starts painting a real picture. I have learned so much about my father. My career could end tomorrow and I've gotten more out of it than I ever dreamed I could before I got into it. It's something I never thought I'd ever realise.