James Horley

James Denis Horley (born 1960) is an Australian Engineer and Project Manager who founded the Wenden group of companies in 1990; now known as Wenden Partners Pty Limited.
Life, Education and Family
Born June 1960, in Melbourne, Australia, and educated at CBC, he completed an engineering cadetship & Dip Eng in 1980. His sporting attributes and career aspirations worked in parrallel during the 1980s where he competed in various sports and international events including athletics, AFL football and Rugby, but his main passion was always motoracing in which he competed within the Australian & Asian Championship and the 1987 World Touring Car Championship.
Horley incurred a server injury in 1988 suffering a broken neck whilst competing in an South East Asian Touring Car Championship motor race. He married Wende Scott in 1990 and had two children; Devon & Taylor. He went onto form a group of companies in Australia, Europe & the USA involved in Project Engineering and Grand Prix Safety where he became a leading authority in Motorsport safety and circuit design, he was based in the UK in the 1990's where he obtained a Masters Degree in Applied Science.
Career
Horley obtained a engineering cadetship with the Johns Perry Group Limited in 1978 and worked ion various heavy engineering projects in Australia and was latter sent to overseas appointments to New Zealand and Asia where he worked on various heavy industrial & mining projects including projects with New Zealand Steel, Port of Singapore and the Drecro sand mining project in Sri Lanka.
On returning to Australia in 1983, he took a position as project engineer with John Holland Engineering on the ‘Drayton’ Coal mine quickly progressed to project management roles on the Loy Yang Power Station, Ranger & Mt Isa Mine sites
In 1986 he was approached to act as Principal Project Manager for the construction, of the new Ford Motor Company plastics plant in Melbourne. Following this, he embarked on an ambitious array of complex projects including the Melbourne Airport terminal redevelopment and Parliament House in Canberra, expansion of the CUB Brewery and the construction of the ‘Tubemakers’ pipe production facility.
In 1990 he founded the ‘Wenden Group' which specialized in Project Management & Engineering services to Australian Industry.
Horley excelled in project engineering and has undertaken a wide variety of industrial projects throughout Australia and overseas. Today James Horley is a member of the Royal Institute of Engineers (Australia) MIEAust and a Certified Practicing Project Director (CPPD) with the AIPM.
Sporting Life
racing in a Porsche 930]]
A talented athlete, Horley competed in various sports both in Australia and Asia however his main sporting interest was always Motor Racing ; with very little success in his early days, Horley was mentored to give rallying a try and acquired his first car, a Datsun 1600 and competed in the local Victorian Rally Championship. He soon gained notoriety with some spirited performances in The Australian Rally Championship in the late 70's
In 1980, with some sponsorship and good luck, he took his new can and team to New Zealand to drive in the lead up events to the World Rally Championship event, The Motorguard Rally of New Zealand. He was spotted by a local Nissan factory backed team looking for a replacement driver and the rest is history.
A move to Singapore quickly followed to allow him to complete in the South East Asian rally championship in a factory supported Nissan Silvia. His talents shown through and an invitation was soon on the table to complete in the Asian Sports Car Championship in the new Porsche 930.
Horley returned to Australia in 1983 and continued his career as an engineer and race driver in Group C Touring Cars and drove for the Country Dealer Team in the 2 litre category and competed in the last year of Group C regulations in 1984. In 1985, with the introduction of Group A as the Australian & World Touring Car category, Horley built a new 2 car team with the support of his sponsors, Netcomm Australia and prepared two Ford 3000S Capri’s which completed in the Australian Touring Car Championship and Australian Endurance Championship in 1986
In 1987, The team acquired a Group A Nissan Skyline Turbo DR30RS for an assault on the outright category. The team competed in both the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) & some World Touring Car Championship (WTC) events.
In 1988, whilst competing in the South East Asian championship during the 1988 Australian Grand Prix Formula 1 Grand Prix event in Adelaide, Horley crashed at high speed and suffered a broken neck which forced his retirement from competition at only 28 years old.
The next two years were dedicated to recuperating from his injury and surprised many when he latter competed in a summer triathlon series.
Telemetry
Horley’s engineering expertise and knowledge of motorsport saw him design and develop the world’s first live data telemetry system . This technology was a world first for motorsport and was initially used at the Sandown Raceway in the 1987 Castrol 500 where he finished 5th outright.
Telemetry has been a key factor in modern motor racing. Developed in Australia in 1987; Horley designed the 'Racing Modem' in conjunction with his sponsor Netcomm Australia.Telemetry allows the race engineers to interpret the vast amount of data collected during a test or race, and use that to properly tune the car for optimum performance. Systems used in some series, namely Formula One, have become advanced to the point where the potential lap time of the car can be calculated and this is what the driver is expected to meet. Some examples of useful measurements on a race car include accelerations (G forces) in 3 axis, temperature readings, wheel speed, and the displacement of the suspension. In Formula 1, the driver inputs are also recorded so that the team can assess driver performance and, in the case of an accident, the can determine or rule out driver error as a possible cause.
Horley went on to develop a version of the data transmission specifically for television, where the car's instrument panel could be shown during live TV broadcasts. This initiative was first used by Australia's 7 network during the World Touring Car Championship in the Bathurst 1000 in 1987 and is now utilized by many broadcasters on various motorsport coverage throughout the world.
Today, telemetry is required feature with most major teams including Formula 1 and Sports cars championships and every time you see that little ‘dash board’ on your TV screen was also due to Horley’s invention where he ‘linked’ his invention into the Bathurst 1000 television broadcast by working with Australia’s channel 7 network.
In addition to that telemetry has also been applied to the use of Yacht racing. The technology was applied to the Oracle's USA-76.

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