bobby who

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Bobby Donahue's racing saga is classic, with enough turns to satisfy the most imaginative writer or moviemaker.

What began as a dream, turned into a remarkable career that carried him from the nickname Bobby Who? to multiple championships and a spot in the International Snowmobile Racing Hall of Fame.

Donahue saw disappointments to be sure, but scoring wins in both major ice oval and snocross races distinguishes him from many other champions.

History lesson
The racer was born in 1957 in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., the place he still calls home. His dad, Bob Donahue, was a motorcycle/snowmobile dealer who earned top honors as the Wisconsin Hill Climbing champion in 1960 and 1964. Bob raced along with his brother Buz and their friend, Dick Trickle (later a NASCAR driver).

The three Donahue boys - Bobby, older brother Terry and younger brother Troy - would tag along, getting a firsthand view of racing, including the behind-the-scenes preparation of engines, clutches and chassis.

"Even as a young boy, all I wanted to do was go racing with my dad," Bobby says. "I was 8 when he founded his business in 1966, and I loved going to the shop with him, riding on the back of his motorcycle. That's how it all started, being around engines and watching my dad compete. He noticed right away how eager I was to be a part of that."

Bobby's mother noticed too. She knew racing was in the boys' blood, but made sure they were old enough to fend for themselves before getting involved.

"My dad's championship hill climbing trophy was large, about 5 feet tall," Bobby explains. "She [Bobby's mother] said that when we were as tall as that trophy, we would be big enough to go racing." Then he adds with a smile, "It wasn't until just a few years ago that my dad told me that he had shortened that trophy by several inches so we would be tall enough."

Bobby's father was instrumental in his racing success, and it's obvious that Bobby deeply respects him.

"When I was 16, my dad took a new Yamaha GPX 338 right off the showroom floor and gave it to me to start racing," he recalls. "He was building engines for Dick Trickle in those days, so I kind of tagged along with Dick. I wasn't very successful starting out, but I was learning and gaining experience in a great environment. After a couple of years, I got pretty fair at it. My dad and Uncle Buz were genius mechanics, and Trickle was an outstanding mentor, so I was very fortunate. … Even though I was just a teenager, I had both the desire and the opportunity, with the dream of someday being World Champion."

Bobby's first big win came in 1974 at Eagle River, Wis., with that Yamaha GPX 338 his dad had given him. He won the 340 stock class on a 7-mile closed course that resembled a short cross-country race. "It was the only race of that kind I ever ran," he says, "but it was a little incentive that made me try harder in my oval racing. In '75 I began to get more competitive and started making the finals more often."

For 1976, Yamaha came out with the SRX - a milestone sled. "I had one machine," Bobby says, "and I ran it in two versions. My dad made me a modified kit for it and a stock kit. I'd race it as stock on Saturday, then I would change the cylinders, the head, the exhaust, the clutch and the gearing on it - and I'd race it modified the next day. I was a good enough mechanic by then that I could do all of that by myself."

Bobby and his dual purpose Yamaha had a date with destiny. An early season high-profile win at Alexandria, Minn., thrust him into the limelight.

"It's funny - I got third in stock on Saturday, won the mod stock on Sunday and then won the 340 Sno Pro race against all the factory drivers. That was a really big deal and it was definitely the turning point in my career. Next to Eagle River, that was definitely the race you wanted to win."

A racing magazine heralded his win with the headline "Bobby Who?," a play on words that underscored how surprising the 18-year-old's win was.

Foreigners come calling
The next year, Yamaha hired Donahue and Trickle for its factory team and Bobby finished fifth overall. After a second year with the Japanese manufacturer, Ski-Doo came calling, and Donahue changed marques, moving to Valcourt, Que. "It was a very big change for me, but our team did really well that year. I was a little homesick for Wisconsin, and they didn't offer me a contract the next season, so I became an independent."

But not for long. Donahue was invited to the 1979 Kawasaki Race of Champions, a special event at Owatonna, Minn., for the top 10 independent (non-factory) drivers, where everyone ran identically prepared 440 Invaders. He won his first heat and the final.

"It was a winner-take-all deal," he recalls. "The big prize was $6,000."

Soon after, Ski-Doo offered him a ride for the Eagle River World Championship - he finished second to Bobby Elsner. "He was good. He won because he deserved it. He was faster that day than I was, that's all there was to it."

It was the first of three second-place finishes for Donahue at the world's most prestigious snowmobile race (the others coming in 1982 and 1986).

Bobby signed with Ski-Doo for the remainder of that season and ran fairly well, but a devastating crash during a night test in mid-February at Valcourt ended his season. "The weld on a new front-end part broke and I went off the racetrack at over 100 mph," he says. "Luckily I didn't get all busted up, but it tore my leg up inside, and the recovery was slow, so I didn't get offered a contract for the next year."

Undaunted, Bobby returned to racing the next winter with Olav Aaen, a Wisconsin engine builder and performance expert who created an AMSOIL-sponsored racing team to raise the profile of his business. Aaen, now AmSnow's Tech Editor, signed Donahue and Tim Bender of New York as drivers.

"I bought some Ski-Doos from the factory and Tim brought a couple Polaris sleds. Olav modified the engines and exhausts for all of us and we went racing," Donahue says.

For the '81 and '82 seasons, Bobby ran as an independent. "Even though I was running Ski-Doos, I painted them orange and called them MotoSkis, since that's what we sold at our dealership. I had a great season in '81, and finished fifth for the year, the highest ranking of an independent that season."

The next year, factory racing slowed as snowmobile sales plummeted and the sport suffered through one of its most difficult times, including the demise of industry leader Arctic Enterprises. Competition continued, but it was obvious that the racing world was changing.

Snocross beginnings
Even with the industry at its worst, a new form of competition was introduced in 1983 at Alexandria, Minn. Snocross - a winter version of motorcycle racing's popular motocross - run on challenging terrain on closed courses.

Although he was an oval racer at heart, Bobby took to it quickly.

"I ran a Yamaha SRV that year and won a number of events. Yamaha gave us a Phazer to race for them in '84, and had Tim Bender and I on their team for '84 and '85," Bobby recalls. "In those 2 years, we kicked butt and won a lot of races, and I took the points championship in both Pro Stock and Pro Open in both seasons. I had to walk a fine line, because Yamaha didn't want me racing a branded Ski-Doo in Sno Pro, so I ran that sled as a Vision, which was our own name."

In 1985, Formula III oval racing was introduced, featuring modified, high-horse engines in stock-like bodied sleds. Bobby and the Yamaha team dominated the new series. He was the season points leader that year as well as winner of the Formula III Championship at Eagle River.

Although he excelled in both, the better Donahue did in snocross, the more his performance suffered in oval racing. Since his 1978 debut, he had made it into Eagle River's championship race every January - until 1985. Yet his ultimate goal remained winning the World Championship. Sitting out the big event forced him to reassess his priorities and led him to abandon snocross.

For the 1986 and 1987 seasons, Donahue moved to Lake Villa, Ill., as part of the Nielsen Enterprises team with driver Jim Dimmerman, running a twin track Ski-Doo and finishing second in the World Championship in '86. In 1988, he moved back to Wisconsin Rapids, bought a twin track Ski-Doo from another racer and then had what he called "the banner year of my life."

He won 7 of 11 Sno Pro features and - in his ninth attempt - won the World Championship at Eagle River, after a spirited battle with runner-up Allen Decker. At the top of his game, and at the ripe old age of 30, Bobby Donahue retired from racing.

"Our team had achieved all of its goals, and I had accomplished the one I had set when I was 16," he says. "The guys who had been with me, all of them friends, had given so much of themselves for so long. They were getting married and having children and racing was taking them away from all that, so it was a good time for all of us to wrap it up."

Racing honors
Donahue stayed involved with racing for the next four seasons, working for ESPN TV. He was teamed with noted racing broadcaster Paul Page and got to see the Sno Pro series from the press box. "I was their expert analyst and did a special feature for each show, covering a particular driver or some technical aspect, as well as post-race interviews. Paul taught me a lot and it was a really fun gig."

Bobby was elected to the Racing Hall of Fame in 1997 at age 39, an honor that he especially appreciates. "I've been so fortunate," he says. "So many people receive that kind of recognition late in life or after they're gone. I've been able to not only enjoy it, but also share it with everyone who helped me throughout my racing career. Those people really deserve a lot of the credit, and I couldn't have achieved what I did without them."

Today, Bobby is a family man and businessman. He and his wife Jill have been married for 14 years and are the parents of daughter Cassidy and son Danny. With his two brothers, Bobby co-owns and operates Donahue Super Sports, the business his dad started.

The 33,000-square-foot dealership that sells both Ski-Doo and Yamaha products is just east of Wisconsin Rapids. The building is just 10 years old.

"We run the business as a team," Bobby says. "Terry is involved with sales, Troy works on the service side and I function as the general manager. Our dad and Uncle Buz are still very involved with the engine building and service operation, where their experience and expertise are invaluable."

The performance shop handles plenty of outside business and also builds engines for the Donahue Super Sports snocross team, one of the ways Bobby keeps his hand in the racing world these days.

Although retired for almost 20 years, he hasn't lost his touch. At the invitational Yamaha Race of Champions at Eagle River in January 2006, he and six other World Champions took to the track on identically prepared Yamaha Nytros for a 6-lap feature race. In front of the wildly cheering crowd, Bobby took the win.

"It was one of the most gratifying wins of my life," he says. "I was the oldest guy out there, racing against proven champions who were as much as 25 years younger than I was, and I beat them all. What a feeling that was!" Another victory added to the Bobby Donahue legend - and proof he's still riding high.