 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
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.
Downing was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a Georgia Tech graduate with a degree in industrial management. He married public relations specialist Connie Goudinoff in 1989. He is a member of the Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) fraternity.[ citation needed ]
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 in 1963. He continued SCCA racing successfully on the amateur level for the next 11 years.
Looking for new challenges, he joined IMSA 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 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 IMSA career, Jim progressed up the competition ladder from the near showroom stock Radial Sedan series Mazda RX-2 & Mazda RX3, to GTU Mazda RX3 & Mazda RX7 and GTO in the Mazda RX7, then up to the ultra-quick purpose-built GTP category prototypes, all powered by two, three, and four-rotor versions of the Mazda 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 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 and Le Mans. He won several Camel Lights championships, including 41 career victories, and is still racing today in SCCA and Formula Atlantic (the fastest class in SCCA).
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 of Patrick Jacquemart at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course during the Red Roof Inns 200 IMSA GT Championship event in May 1981. Jacquemart, the director of Renault 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, 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 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 HANS Device during his IMSA sports car races.
| Year | Track | Car | Engine | Class | Finish | Start | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | Riverside | Formcar | Volkswagen | Formula Vee | 10 | Running | |
| 1971 | Road Atlanta | Ford Mustang | Ford | American Sedan | 5 | 11 | Running |
| 1972 | Road Atlanta | Ford Mustang | Ford | American Sedan | 10 | 14 | Running |
| 2005 | Mid-Ohio | Ralt RT41 | Toyota | C Sports Racer | 4 | 10 | Running |
| 2006 | Heartland Park | Ralt RT41 | Toyota | C Sports Racer | 5 | 7 | Running |
| 2007 | Heartland Park | Ralt RT40 | Toyota | C Sports Racer | 8 | DNS | |
| 2008 | Heartland Park | Peach Day 01 | Mazda | C Sports Racer | 3 | 3 | Running |
| 2009 | Road America | Peach Day 01 | Mazda | C Sports Racer | 5 | 7 | Running |
| 2010 | Road America | Peach Day 01 | Mazda | C Sports Racer | 8 | 8 | Running |
| 2011 | Road America | Peach Day 02 | Mazda | C Sports Racer | 3 | 7 | Running |
2002 Phil Hill Award
2008 Bob Akin Memorial Motorsports Award
2012 Sebring Hall of Fame Inductee
2014 SCCA Hall of Fame Inductee
The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is run on the Sports Car Course layout, a 3.56-mile (5.73 km) combined road course that uses most of the tri-oval plus an infield road course. Held on the last weekend of January or first weekend of February as part of Speedweeks, it is the first major automobile race of the year in North America. The race is sanctioned by IMSA and is the first race of the season for the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
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 director of SCCA, and his wife Peggy in 1969 with help from Bill France Sr. of NASCAR. Beginning in 2014, IMSA is the sanctioning body of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the premier series resulting from the merger of Grand-Am Road Racing and the American Le Mans Series. IMSA is owned by NASCAR, as a division of the company.
Brian Herman Thomas Redman, is a retired British racing driver.
A HANS 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 injuries, including the often fatal basilar skull fracture, in the event of a crash. There are many such devices on the market today, but the HANS is the original and the most common.
Bill Auberlen is an American factory race car driver known for his affiliation with BMW, driving cars made and run by the famous German marque for a number of years. Auberlen currently competes for Turner Motorsport in the IMSA SportsCar Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge. He is the winningest driver in IMSA history.
John Lee Paul Jr. was an American racing driver. He competed in CART and the Indy Racing League competitions, but primarily in IMSA GT Championship, winning the title in 1982.
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.
The Mazda RX-792P is a sports prototype racing car built for the IMSA GT Championship's GTP category for Mazda. Its career was short lived, with only two cars running in 1992 before the project was abandoned.
Rodney Kenneth Millen is a New Zealand racing driver, vehicle designer, and business owner. He has competed in numerous genres of motorsports, including rally racing, off-road racing, hillclimbing, drifting, and super touring.
Yojiro Terada is a Japanese racing driver from Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. He is known for holding the record for the second most participations in the 24 Hours of Le Mans without an overall win, having run on 29 occasions since 1974. He is also third behind Henri Pescarolo and Bob Wollek for the drivers with the most participations. He scored class victories at the event in 1983, 1988, 1990 and 1996, while his best overall finish was seventh in 1995.
Tristan Vautier is a French professional racing driver who is currently competing in the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship for the Vanwall Racing Team.
Dane Cameron is an American racing driver from Glen Ellen, California. He won the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship overall in 2016 and 2019, and also in the GTD class in 2014.
Jordan Lee Taylor is an American professional racing driver. He competes full-time in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Corvette Racing, part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Hendrick Motorsports, and part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 10 Chevrolet Camaro for Kaulig Racing. He won the 2017 24 Hours of Daytona and the 2017 championship in the Prototype class of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
The Mazda GTP is an IMSA GTP race car that was built by Pierre Honegger in 1981. Based on a Mazda RX-7, the car initially competed in the GTX category as the Mazda RX-7 GTP, before it was rebuilt for the IMSA GTP category in 1983. Throughout its career, the car used a Mazda 13B Wankel rotary engine, similar to that used in the production RX-7s. Although the rotary-engined sports prototypes generally had a reputation of being very reliable, the Mazda GTP frequently failed to finish races, and was never able to better the eighth place achieved at the 1983 24 Hours of Daytona. In 1986, one car was purchased by Erie Scientific Racing, and rebuilt to become the Badger BB. This car was no more successful or reliable than its predecessor, and was last used in 1989, by which point it was owned by Jack Engelhardt. The other car, meanwhile, was rebuilt by Honegger into the Denali Speedcar, which was used with moderate success in 1986 and 1987.
Crawford Composites is an American manufacturer of carbon fiber and composite parts company based in Denver, North Carolina. Crawford designs and manufacture structural and non-structural composite components in industries such as aerospace, aviation, motor sports, health care, defense and structural construction.
Mikhail "Misha" Goikhberg, is a Russian-born Canadian race car driver who is best known for competing in the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
Leigh Miller Racing was a team in the Indy Racing League and the IMSA GT Championship owned by sportscar driver Leigh Miller. After competing at the IMSA Supercar Championship in 1993, Miller stepped up to IMSA GT, first with a Porsche 968 and a Porsche 944 Turbo for the GTU, before acquiring two Mazda-developed Kudzu prototypes for the WSC class and setting up his own team.
The 1993 Rolex 24 at Daytona was a 24-hour endurance sports car race held on January 30–31, 1993 at the Daytona International Speedway road course. The race served as the opening round of the 1993 IMSA GT Championship.
Walt Bohren was an American race car driver who won the IMSA GTU Championship in 1980.
Kenton Koch is an American racing driver who competes in the GT4 America Series, Michelin Pilot Challenge, and IMSA SportsCar Championship.
Internet Source: Road Racing Drivers Club
Internet Source: Mulsanne's Corner: An Interview With Jim Downing
RRDC Press Release, dated February 4, 2008: Motorsport.com
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
