J D McDuffie

Career

After attending his first race in Bowman Gray Stadium at the age of ten, McDuffie was inspired by racers Curtis Turner, Glenn Wood, Billy Myers, and others to become a race car driver.

McDuffie won several small races throughout the Carolinas including a track championship at a small dirt track near Rockingham, North Carolina. McDuffie made his NASCAR Winston Cup Series (now Monster Energy Cup Series) debut in 1963 at the Rambi Speedway near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina driving Curtis Turner’s old 1961 Ford. Though McDuffie was an expert dirt track racer, he never had similar success on asphalt tracks. His best NASCAR finish came at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway, in 1971, where he managed to finish third. Meanwhile, his first last-place finish came at the 1963 Pickens 200. In 1978, McDuffie won the pole position for the Delaware 500. In the 1988 Daytona 500 qualifying race, McDuffie received second- and third-degree burns in an accident after he raced without fireproof gloves because they were stolen before the race.

One day before his fatal accident at Watkins Glen International Speedway, McDuffie won a celebrity race in Owego, New York, at the Shangri-La Speedway, not far from Watkins Glen.

McDuffie is still the record holder for the most starts in NASCAR's top touring series without recording a win. His 653 starts rank him 21st all-time (as of September 2014). McDuffie held the series record for the most last-place finishes with 32 until Joe Nemechek surpassed him in 2014.

Death

McDuffie was involved in an accident on the fifth lap of the 1991 Budweiser at The Glen race at Watkins Glen International. On the straight between the esses and the loop-chute, at 170 mph, McDuffie collided with Jimmy Means after suffering a mechanical failure. McDuffie's left front wheel spindle broke off of the car, causing him to lose brakes and hit Means in the right front. This left him no way of stopping the car or steering it, and to further complicate matters, there was no gravel trap in the corner that McDuffie was headed toward. As a result, McDuffie skidded across the grass and hit the outside retaining wall and tire barrier with such force that the car shot into the air, rotated, and then came to rest upside-down. Means also crashed into the same corner but was able to slow his vehicle down before the impact; his car went under McDuffie's as it was in mid-air. Means, a fellow independent racer, suffered only minor cuts and bruises in the accident, and got out of his car to check on McDuffie. After peering into McDuffie's car, he began frantically signaling for assistance, and a host of medical personnel and track workers rushed to the scene. The race was delayed for two hours as McDuffie was removed from his car and his Pontiac was removed from the infield. Also, the wall that McDuffie and Means struck had to be repaired. As the cars got back on the track and cruised under yellow flag conditions, the media attention turned to Chip Williams, NASCAR's PR director, who disclosed that McDuffie had died instantly from head and brain injuries. The direct cause of death was a basilar skull fracture caused by rapid head movement to the right. The 52-year-old was survived by wife Ima Jean, son, Jeff (who himself drove in five Winston Cup events), and daughter, Linda. Williams, in the live interview where McDuffie's death was confirmed, erroneously reported that McDuffie was 53; he would not have been 53 until December 5 of that year. NASCAR also erroneously reported that McDuffie was 53.

McDuffie's death led to changes at Watkins Glen and also influenced motorsport safety changes that would come to full fruition at the end of the decade. Six weeks earlier, Camel GT prototype driver Tommy Kendall had a hard crash in the same section during the Camel Continental VIII, when a wheel failed on his Pratt & Miller Intrepid RM-1-Chevrolet prototype, sliding into the barrier, breaking both his legs and sidelining him for the rest of the 1991 season, including the Winston Cup race, where he was set to substitute for Kyle Petty, injured at Talladega in May (Kendall had substituted for Petty at Sears Point earlier in the year). The track was then given a bus stop chicane placed slightly before the entrance of turn five, the section of track in question, and a gravel trap (since paved over), for the 1992 season.

Also, at the time, basilar skull fractures were the subject of developing research by Jim Downing and Bob Hubbard into a head and neck restraint for motorsport. Downing, a champion sports car racer, and his brother-in-law Hubbard, were in the process of developing the HANS device, which had just begun production. McDuffie's death was among the catalysts that led to increased funding by the automakers to continue research into basilar skull fractures as part of motorsport safety improvements, as adoption by sports car drivers of HANS had increased. By the end of the decade, following two CART fatalities in one season and three NASCAR fatalities in a span of five months, and then the start of the next decade with two more fatalities (including that of Dale Earnhardt, Sr.), and research into the head and neck restraints that had quickly been adopted, most motorsport sanctioning bodies mandated head and neck restraints worldwide.

McDuffie's widow, Ima Jean, unsuccessfully sued Watkins Glen for $4.25 million, claiming the barrier McDuffie hit was unsafe. The judge in that case ruled that McDuffie was familiar enough with the track to be aware of the dangers and that mechanical failure caused the accident. The cause of the mechanical failure was never explained as NASCAR did a very brief investigation and the wheel that broke off disappeared before it could be returned to the McDuffie family. After McDuffie, Dale Earnhardt, Sr., and Kenny Irwin, Jr. died, and research into the head and neck restraints that had quickly been adopted, most motorsport sanctioning bodies worldwide, (including NASCAR) mandated head and neck restraints. Today, NASCAR requires all drivers to wear this special HANS device.

NASCAR

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Winston Cup Series

Daytona 500

ARCA Permatex SuperCar Series

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)