James Downing (born January 4, 1942) is an American former professional race car driver, he is a five-time IMSA Championship winner, owner/driver of Downing/Atlanta Racing, and was principal in the development of the

HANS device A HANS device (head and neck support device) is a type of head restraint, a safety device in motorsports. Head restraints are mandatory when competing with most major motorsports sanctioning bodies. They reduce the likelihood of head or neck in ...

Personal life

Downing was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

graduate with a degree in

industrial management In economics, industrial organization is a field that builds on the theory of the firm by examining the structure of (and, therefore, the boundaries between) firms and markets. Industrial organization adds real-world complications to the perf ...

. He married public relations specialist Connie Goudinoff in 1989. He is a member of the

Phi Gamma Delta Phi Gamma Delta (), commonly known as Fiji, is a social Fraternities and sororities, fraternity with more than 144 active chapters and 10 colonies across the United States and Canada. It was founded at Washington & Jefferson College, Jefferson C ...

(FIJI) fraternity.

Racing

His father was a major foreign car dealer in the Atlanta area, he grew up around cars and racing. He began racing soapbox derbies when he was 11, raced those for several years, then won a local downhill slalom event when he was 16. In his late teens and early twenties, he raced gymkhanas (known today as SCCA Solo) in almost anything he could get his hands on because SCCA rules of the time prohibited racing before age 21. When he was 21, he bought an Elva Courier

for $200 that had been totaled, spent a year and a half putting it back together, and began racing at

Daytona Beach Daytona Beach, or simply Daytona, is a coastal resort-city in east-central Florida. Located on the eastern edge of Volusia County near the Atlantic coastline, its population was 72,647 at the 2020 census. Daytona Beach is approximately nort ...

in 1963. He continued SCCA racing successfully on the amateur level for the next 11 years. Looking for new challenges, he joined

IMSA The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is a North American sports car racing sanctioning body based in Daytona Beach, Florida under the jurisdiction of the ACCUS arm of the FIA. It was started by John Bishop, a former executive direc ...

in 1974, at the invitation of John Bishop, President, and founder of the (then) new International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), they were so friendly and helpful that it convinced him that he should give it a try. As a young person coming out of very amateur racing, it was a big step. He quickly discovered in the first year of racing a

Mazda RX-2 The Mazda Capella, also known as the 626 in North America and Southeast Asia, is a mid-size car that was manufactured by Mazda from 1970 until 2002. Sold in the Japanese domestic market under the Capella name, the vehicle was also commonly known ...

in the old RS series that he got more experience in one year than he had in the last six years in club racing. Sponsored by the Mazda factory for his entire

career, Jim progressed up the competition ladder from the near showroom stock Radial Sedan series

& Mazda RX3, to GTU Mazda RX3 &

Mazda RX7 The Mazda RX-7 is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, rotary engine-powered sports car that was manufactured and marketed by Mazda from 1978 until 2002 across three generations, all of which made use of a compact, lightweight Wankel rotary engine. ...

and

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in the

, then up to the ultra-quick purpose-built GTP category prototypes, all powered by two, three, and four-rotor versions of the

Mazda , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one ...

Wankel engine. After competing in an Argo-built prototype since 1984, in 1988 he began designing and building a prototype racer of his own design. His Kudzu DG-1, made its debut in San Antonio in September 1989. In 1999, with the demise/reorganization of the IMSA series, he moved on to the

American Le Mans Series The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) was a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada. It consisted of a series of endurance and sprint races, and was created in the spirit of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The American Le Mans' h ...

with his Kudzu racers until the end of the 2000 racing season, then into an AutoExe Motorsports prototype as his long and successful career wound down. During his illustrious forty-five-year racing career he has either won or scored highly in races at Daytona, Sebring,

Nürburgring The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around the village a ...

and

Le Mans Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le ...

. He won several Camel Lights championships, including 41 career victories, and is still racing today in SCCA and

Formula Atlantic Formula Atlantic is a specification of open-wheel racing car developed in the 1970s. It was used in professional racing through the IMSA Atlantic Championship until 2009 and is currently primarily used in amateur racing through Sports Car Club o ...

(the fastest class in SCCA).

HANS Device

Jim Downing has been credited as the first to identify the problems associated with a restrained torso and an unrestrained head in sudden deceleration impacts, following the 1981 death o
Patrick Jacquemart
at the

Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is a road course auto racing facility located in Troy Township, Morrow County, Ohio, United States, just outside the village of Lexington. Mid-Ohio has also colloquially become a term for the entire north-central region ...

during the Red Roof Inns 200

IMSA GT Championship IMSA GT was a sports car racing series organized by International Motor Sports Association. Races took place primarily in the United States, and occasionally in Canada. History The series was founded in 1969 by John and Peggy Bishop, and Bill ...

event in May 1981. Jacquemart, the director of

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...

Racing in the United States, was at the wheel of his IMSA GTU-specification Renault 5 Turbo when he missed the curve at the bottom of the plunge down Thunder Valley (Turn 7), striking a sandbank with the front of the car. He suffered a fracture of the base of his skull and was pronounced dead on arrival at Morrow County Hospital in Mount Gilead, OH. With the problem identified, Downing turned to his brother-in-law, Dr. Robert Hubbard, a bio mechanical crash engineer for

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

, to help him design a Head And Neck Support system that would eliminate or protect against these types of injuries. Working together, their goal was to create a device that would reduce the chance of a serious injury caused by the violent movement of the unrestrained head and helmet during a crash. Dr. Hubbard created the first prototypes of the

HANS Device A HANS device (head and neck support device) is a type of head restraint, a safety device in motorsports. Head restraints are mandatory when competing with most major motorsports sanctioning bodies. They reduce the likelihood of head or neck in ...

in the late 1980s, and Downing, as a firm believer of the product he had helped to create, started wearing the untested prototype of the

during his

sports car races.

Racing record

SCCA National Championship Runoffs

Notable Motorsports Awards

2002 Phil Hill Award 2008 Bob Akin Memorial Motorsports Award 2012 Sebring Hall of Fame Inductee 2014 SCCA Hall of Fame Inductee

References

Internet Source:
Road Racing Drivers Club
Internet Source:

RRDC Press Release, dated February 4, 2008:
Motorsport.com

External links

Downing/Atlanta
{{DEFAULTSORT:Downing, Jim Living people 1942 births International Motor Sports Association 24 Hours of Daytona drivers Georgia Tech alumni Racing drivers from Atlanta SCCA National Championship Runoffs participants