Jim Downing

By H.A. Branham

Jim Downing is a special case – and a special man. One of IMSA’s most successful drivers, he evolved into an individual who transcended racing by developing a life-saving safety initiative, the most important safety initiative in the history of racing … the HANS Device. A two-tiered racing résumé like no other. That’s the reason Downing was the top vote-getter among the IMSA Hall of Fame Selection Committee, when the 2024 class of inductees was determined.

Before going further, Downing’s on-track prowess cannot be overlooked. The Atlanta native won 24 IMSA races.

But how weird to recall the times when Downing’s off-track prowess was certainly overlooked? The HANS (Head and Neck Support) Device was invented by Downing and his late brother-in-law Dr. Robert Hubbard, with first versions in the 1980s. The racing industry responded with a collective yawn. Until Feb. 18, 2001, the day Dale Earnhardt died of basilar skull fracture after a last-lap wreck in the Daytona 500.

And so of course, the phones were ringing off the hook at the offices of Hans Performance Products -- the business started by Downing and Hubbard – in Chamblee, Georgia on the morning of Feb. 19.

“Before this happened nobody wanted the damn thing,” Ken Adams, HPP’s director, said that day. In the week after Earnhardt's crash, more devices were sold – 300 – than in the entire 1990s. The device that had been resisted by drivers throughout that decade is now credited with saving hundreds of them from basilar skull fractures.

In 1980, Downing had survived a bad racing accident at Mosport. The next year, Patrick Jacquemart died after crashing at Mid-Ohio. The cause: basilar skull fracture.

“I was asking how we could prevent this?” Downing said. “Bob, being a biomechanical engineer, he came up with the idea. It evolved and evolved and evolved. … But let's give Bob most of the credit for the invention, really. He likes to say that I asked the question, he answered it and then we built it.”

When the HANS became available, the racing world paid minimal attention – until the death of Formula One great Aryton Senna in 1994. Seven years later, Earnhardt’s death was a tragic, final catalyst for the near-universal acceptance the HANS receives today.

As a racer, Downing started wearing the HANS in 1986, in the Rolex 24 At Daytona. (The second driver to wear one was Paul Newman.) It was patented in ’87. Concurrent, Downing – a Mazda factory-supported driver for more than 20 years – was having a fine competitive decade, winning five IMSA championships, three consecutively in the downsized-prototype class he helped IMSA President John Bishop launch, Camel Lights. Yes, a series named after a cigarette. Downing smoked ‘em. The competition, we mean.

Downing and Hubbard (who died in 2019) were inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2024, in the Technical Category.

“Not only did the HANS save lives, it helped save the sport, becoming a key link in a new era of racing safety,” writes journalist and author Jonathan Ingram, author of CRASH!, which chronicles the history of the HANS. “Car and Driver called it the greatest safety invention since the seat belt.”