David Donohue: mastering Pikes Peak
David Donohue is tackling Pikes Peak International Hillclimb this weekend (Aug 30 2020) in a 700bhp Porsche GT2 RS Clubsport entered by Porsche of The Main Line, Porsche Colorado Springs and BBi Autosport.
The 98th running of Pikes Peak will be the fourth time David’s entered the event, but when we caught up with him, the Daytona 24 Hour winner explained that he never really intended to do it all. The journey began when David – son of Mark Donohue who won the 1973 Can-Am Championship in a Porsche 917/30 and lost his life at the Austrian GP in 1975 – became the US client relationship manager of the Porsche 918 hybrid hypercar and travelled the country to meet customers and dealers.
‘I met the guys at Porsche Colorado Springs – Joe Brenner the general manager, and the owner Don Hicks. They’re absolutely nutty in their passion for Porsche and motorsport, they make sure the car’s number is 911 each year and we just became friends. There was also Fred Veitch, kind of the grandfather of the event. He said “we got a car we want to modify and take up” and I never said no because, you know, usually nothing ever happens,’ laughs David. ‘I didn’t know a huge amount about the event other than the Unsers ran it well, it had a reputation. Then I watched the video and I thought “oh shit, what the hell did I just agree to?” I had too much ego to back off! I just dedicated a lot of time to learning the course before I got there and we’ve been pretty successful every time.’
David’s first attempt on the 12.42-mile, 2862-metre high road course came in 2017, driving a 991.1 Turbo S that began life as a highly specified marketing car for Porsche North America, complete with Burmester sound system. Two years earlier David Donner had set a production car record when the car was completely stock. For Donohue’s attempt, the car was stripped and modified to around 700bhp – though altitude would rob it of a chunk of that.
‘Talk about completely the wrong way of doing it, they ripped it apart to turn it into a racer, you couldn’t do it by spending more money!’ he remembers. ‘But it’s such a pure event and it’s so much fun to drive a mountain road with no restriction – you can go round corners in the wrong lane, it just feels wrong, like the kind of thing you dream about but never actually get to do.’
In that debut year, David blitzed the 156 corners in 9min 49.95sec, sixth overall and second in the Time Attack 1 class. But there was room for improvement, particularly the long gearing of the stock PDK transmission.
He returned in 2018 in a yellow 991.1 GT3 R racecar, again contesting Time Attack 1. ‘It was chassis 01 – or 9501 – the very first,’ recalls David. ‘The GT3 R was 600 horsepower at sea level, maybe 350 at the summit. It was an independent effort, but Porsche North America helped us with ECU programmes that came from motorsport, because the engine wouldn’t even start at 6000ft with the tuning, let alone 9000ft.
‘That car was just hooked up, and even though we ran the suspension low like near normal race height, it was damped really well – that was crucial because there’s permafrost up there and the road’s really wavy and throws you up in the air.’ David’s time of 9min 37.15sec put him sixth overall and first in class with a new class record too.
Last year, the team found a solution for the GT3 R’s lack of power at altitude – a highly tuned Turbo engine. ‘At one point we were making 1150 horsepower, but we kept blowing engines, we went through four. I think between the builder and the tuner mistakes were being made.’ Porsche, he stresses, were not involved!
Ultimately Donohue finished fourth overall and second in the Open class, with a 9min 33.40sec run, and estimates he lost around 10 seconds because ice in the water injection (to chill the intake temperature and increase power) froze a throttle body and gave a huge lag in throttle response until it warmed up.
This year sees David again contesting the Time Attack 1 class, and so far it’s going well – Donohue set a best of 3:55.942 in qualifying on the lower section of the mountain, not only the fastest for Time Attack 1, but fastest overall in ‘Sunny’, as is searing yellow 911 is nicknamed. ‘The GT2 RS Clubsport is surprisingly fast on the mountain and definitely exceeding our expectations, especially for a project that has come together so quickly’ he told us. ‘Porsche of The Main Line purchased the car in late July and I only drove it for the first time in early August. We’ve partnered with Porsche Colorado Springs and BBi Autosport, and in spite of being thrown together at the last minute, it feels as if we’ve been working on this all year. BBi Autosport has done an unbelievable job to make me very comfortable in the car.’
Donohue is mindful not to get complacent, though. ‘I always need to keep in mind that the mountain will have its own way on Sunday, and we never know what we will get for a run – the weather can always be a factor, as can wildlife. I just hope I can show off what this team has accomplished in such a short time.’ He’ll be going up against Pikes Peak veterans David Donner and Jeff Zwart, both of whom are running… Porsche 911 GT2 RSs.
We’ll be watching to see if he can grab the win this Sunday, August 30. For now, check out the video taster below.
