HANS device safety pioneers, driver & biomechanical engineer

The HANS (Head and Neck Support) device has probably saved more drivers than any other advancement in motorsports safety in the past 50 years. Head and neck injuries, including basilar skull fractures, used to claim many lives in otherwise survivable accidents throughout every form of the sport. Prominent victims included Dale Earnhardt, Bill Vukovich, Scott Brayton, Neil Bonnett, Adam Petty, Tony Bettenhausen and Clifford Allison. Five-time IMSA champion Jim Downing teamed with brother-in-law Dr. Bob Hubbard, a biomechanical engineering professor at Michigan State University, to create an apparatus to prevent such injuries. The U-shaped device restrains the head from whipping back and forth in a crash. Although they built the prototypes in the 1980s, the motorsports establishment was slow to embrace it until Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Widespread acceptance came after Dale Earnhardt’s death in the 2001 DAYTONA 500. Today, the HANS device is required by virtually every major sanctioning body. The number of lives saved is incalculable.