25 replies to this topic

[island]

Hi!
He was the dominant F5000 driver Down Under
in the late 70s and even had some success
in US-Racing. But he tried F1 only once
(1976 at Watkins Glen). Was he not good
enough? Any ideas?

[Keir]

At the Glen, he drove the Wolf-Williams, which was an updated Hesketh 308C.
It proved to be a difficult car to drive and setup. Warwick was a bit over his head in F1, but seemed not to realize it.
What ever the problem, no one cared to give him a chance, which to me, says that there was something else not quite right.

Can anyone solve the mystery???

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"I Was Born Ready"

[Ray Bell]

An interesting view, Keir - it was only in F5000 that Warwick shone, and in intercity record breaking in the dead of night in Pat Burke's Porsche. Note that both are tail heavy? Perhaps that's the answer..
You couldn't, surely, write him out of F1 after just one look at the cars? You even admit it was a difficult car... And if he 'seemed not to realize he was over his head,' doesn't that indicate that the difficulty he faced, or the lack of opportunity he had?
I don't think you can consider what other people thought about his chances...
I might ask him about that episode when I get the chance and update this thread for you.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Ray Bell]

In the meantime I'll relate what I saw one time at Warwick Farm. This was when Brown had the M10B to race, the Lola T300 having been destroyed (along with his feet - what a mess) at Surfers. Peter Molloy was his engineer at the time.'
They were on the short circuit, the normal 2.25m circuit only being open for race meetings (it had to cross the horse track twice). At the end of the test, Molloy sent him around the circuit backwards, so the attitude to Paddock Bend was no longer to brake and line up for the entry to the Causeway beyond, but to gain speed coming onto the straight.
Ignoring the horse-track watering rails on the edge of the circuit, Warwick had it wound up in the nicest of slides - tail down and out with the power full on. Looked just great.
The things that you see that are unusual are always the best.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Dave Ware]

My personal opinion, based on what I read in Autoweek at the time, was that given the right equipment he could have won in F5000 in the U.S. The Talon was not a fully developed car when Warwick drove it. The following year he drove a Lola for Bob Bay and was making progress. For unknown reasons Bay withdrew his car and there was some legal action. But given a competitive car, I'm sure he could been competitive w/ Redman and Andretti, and if he could have done that, he certainly could have been competitive in F1 in the right equipment.

I don't think his one-off drive for Wolf showed anything, except that it wasn't a good car.

I've always considered Brown to be a driver who didn't reach his full potential.

Dave

[charles r]

What happened to Warwick Brown post F5000/CanAm career? Always rated him.

[Ray Bell]

Basically retired...

He had driven (as co-driver) a time or two at Bathurst and he had another drive at Bathurst, but otherwise he was out of it.

If I'm not mistaken, his last F5000 race was his win at Oran Park in the '79 Rothmans.

He did have a job waiting for him, having inherited his father's construction (or earthmoving?) business.

And alongside all the other drivers of his day, he looks so much younger now!

[E1pix]

My personal opinion, based on what I read in Autoweek at the time, was that given the right equipment he could have won in F5000 in the U.S. The Talon was not a fully developed car when Warwick drove it. The following year he drove a Lola for Bob Bay and was making progress. For unknown reasons Bay withdrew his car and there was some legal action. But given a competitive car, I'm sure he could been competitive w/ Redman and Andretti, and if he could have done that, he certainly could have been competitive in F1 in the right equipment.

I don't think his one-off drive for Wolf showed anything, except that it wasn't a good car.

I've always considered Brown to be a driver who didn't reach his full potential.

Dave

Agree on all points.

 

I was at the Glen, and don't think the car was a fair demonstration of what might have been if in a decent car. It looked almost undriveable to me… his teammate Little Artie didn't look any better in his, but again a long time ago and I can't find any race lap time references to compare the two.

 

I hesitate saying this, but in recalling back I think there was some after-effects against Bob Bay in regards to the death of his prior driver. 

 

Regardless, Warwick was a really good driver at a time there were plenty. With more seat time, Who Knows?

 

Beyond that, he sure was nice to me as a kid when I sold him some prints. 

[Ian G]

At one stage in the mid 1970's his car(may have been the Lola,not sure) was stored along with heaps of spares,tyres etc in one of the cages built in the car park of the Big Bear Shopping Centre in Neutral Bay ,Sydney.

The Shopping Centre had closed and they divided the underground Car Park up into work/storeage areas by the use of Cyclone fencing.

We were talking to Huey Meagle,BMC specialist,who rented a cage there and he had no idea what it was going on,wonder the lot wasn't stolen one night as Cyclone Fencing wasn't much of a deterrent.

[Ray Bell]

The Pat Burke Racing workshop was under the Big Bear in the early seventies...

Possibly Pat owned the place.

As Warwick drove only for Team VDS after 1975 I guess there was no need for the white T332 or its spares to be dragged out again.

[E1pix]

As Warwick drove only for Team VDS after 1975...

You're only referring to who Warwick drove for Down Under, right Ray?

[Ray Bell]

Well, I guess you're right there...

He did drive for VDS in America, I'm sure, and I think he got into Can-Am Jr, wasn't all of that with VDS?

[E1pix]

Yep, of the two F5000 races at Road America in '76, he did the July race for Bob Bay, and the later one in a VDS T430 which I think is a David Abbott car now (and Can-Am II for VDS, as you said).

Edited by E1pix, 31 January 2018 - 13:54.

[MarkBisset]

I think the answer is a 'bees-dick' slower than Alan Jones in the same Lola T333 Can Am car in 1978...

WB, well backed from the start by Pat Burke (mind you I always thought WB drove like his next meal depended on it) burst onto the F5000 scene in Oz and was not over-awed at all- even a monster shunt in his T300 at Surfers in the '73 Tasman did not hold him back. I can remember seeing him hobbling around the Surfers paddock during the Glynn Scott Memorial Trophy round that September and thinking OMG you really are a mess- and he was back in the old M10B not long after.

WB was a decade younger than KB, Stewart, Matich, McCormack et al and had the measure of all of them. He didn't go head to head with Matich in his prime as FM retired a season or so before WB peaked. He won the '75 Tasman, Oz, NZ GP etc.

From '76 he was in VDS Lola's until the end of '78 so in the equal best cars to all the hot shots- Unser, Gethin, Redman, Oliver, Jones, Tambay and whoever 'one off Europeans' popped up in North America. He was always in the leading group, beat them all at one time or other, never put a car on pole and won one race only- in '78 when he was second to Jones in the CanAm that year- Jones in the Haas T333, WB in the VDS T333. Notable is that he missed pretty much all of the '77 Can Am due to another big accident in the US.
So to me he was the quickest of the Aussies in F5000 and just a smidge slower than Jones in '78 in the same car at a time AJ was one of the quickest fellas on the planet...

In the mid 2000's WB and i shared the same trainer, he lived in Walsh Bay and I in Millers Point (Sydney), Gayle the trainer organised 2 or 3 dinners, WB was remarkably modest about his achievements. At that stage he owned a couple of Pubs and was an executive jet pilot.

Mark

Ps: Discount the Wolf Williams drive, the car was a **** heap- in a March, say, he would have done well @ Watkins Glen, a circuit he knew well
Quickie article on WB

https://primotipo.co...3/09/wb-for-73/

Edited by MarkBisset, 02 February 2018 - 23:25.

[Ray Bell]

Interesting, the question about he and Alan Jones in that '77 International series here...

Jones demonstrated at Oran Park that he could wipe the board. Or did he?

He jumped the start and raced away to a forty-second lead at the end of the race. Warwick had the legs of everyone else, so all he had to do to win was finish less than a minute behind Jones.

One could wonder what would have happened if they'd had to fight it out on even terms. Warwick in the Lola T430, Jones in the Teddy Yip Lola T332, Warwick had pole at 1:05.7, Jones second on the grid three tenths slower and just a tenth faster than Gethin and Goss.

Would it have been a mighty dice? Might Warwick have gone quicker to stave off his adversary? For sure, the gloves would definitely have been off.

I know Jones got fastest lap at 1:06.4, but I'm away from my magazines so I don't know what times others set. It could have been that Jones' race setup was better, or it could have been that Warwick didn't have to drive any harder.

In 1979 Warwick won every round of the series for VDS. He went back to America but the VDS drive wasn't available to him and so he returned to Australia.

Contrary to what I thought previously, he took up aviation for a living and still flies commercially.




.

Edited by Ray Bell, 05 February 2018 - 06:29.

[Nemo1965]

In Dutch nostalgia Gloss/Max Verstappen tribal magazine RTL Grand Prix there was a very amusing story about Warwick's only F1 race... It almost ended in a mortal crash the evening before the race. If I have time, I will translate it and post it here.

[Jim Thurman]

My brother and I were certainly impressed with Warwick Brown when we saw him race the F5000 round at Riverside. As Mark mentions, he'd already had one serious accident (at Surfers) and then had the accident that sidelined him in '77, which was IIRC, a blowover at Laguna Seca. I recall Brown telling Autoweek that there was nothing wrong with the car, that it was all his fault for not lifting when he should have.

[ellrosso]

I thought I'd put a bit of time into this before posting as WB was one of my favourites and I want to do him justice. I have my RCN reports with all the times etc from the 1977 Rothmans Series : as follows -

 

Oran Park : pole : W Brown 1.05.7. A Jones : 1.06.0 Fastest Laps : WB : 1.06.9 A Jones : 1.06.4 (Fastest lap of the race) Obviously AJ jumped the start so WB knew he could take it easy so no point stretching the car in the race as only Gossy came anywhere near him and he had that well under control. 

 

Surfers : Pole W Brown 1.05.5 (only one to get into the 5's) A Jones : 1.06.3 (5th on grid). Fastest lap : W Brown : 1.06.5 (Fastest lap of race , 1st place) AJ : 1.07.5 5th place. Jones crashed his car heavily in practice though and raced Bartlett's car - so not really indicative.

 

Sandown: grid : WB : 1.01.4. 4th place. A Jones : 1.01.3 3rd spot. Both retired - WB on warm-up lap. AJ great dice with Gethin and blitzing him before stopping with red hot engine.

 

Now, Adelaide. I was at both Sandown and AIR and this is where AJ really stamped his authority. I think WB knew 2nd was about as good as it would get for him on this day as AJ just blasted off from pole and gapped him from the 1st lap onwards. He knew he had the series wrapped up with a 2nd place finish, so didn't stretch himself or the car unnecessarily. It was a masterful performance by AJ and I certainly wasn't surprised when he won the 1977 Austrian GP.

Pole : A Jones : 48.8, WB 2nd spot : 49.3. Race : Fastest lap : A Jones : 49.5 New Outright record. WB : 49.9 2nd place. 3rd place : J Goss : 50.5 .AJ lapped the entire field, just nailing Warwick on the last lap.

 

My first race meeting in Sydney when I moved here in 1986 from my 2 year stint in Adelaide, was a historic meeting at Amaroo Park in 1987. To my surprise Warwick was there in the Lola T332 and drove it beautifully as always. Three other F5000's there (I think Bob Minogue, maybe Peter Brennan, Paul Trevathan - can't recall clearly), but WB won all his races comfortably.

 

Last time I saw him was a Tasman Revival meeting at E Creek (maybe 2013 or 14) where he again re-united with the Lola T332 in Team VDS colours. I took some photos of him in the cockpit in the pits but can't find them anywhere I'm afraid. He did some laps in the car, again driving so smoothly with perfect gear changes - effortless. Was great too see.

 

He did some Touring Cars after he stopped top flight openwheeler competition, and no disrespect to Gary Cooke, he was never really going to be troubling the Peter Brock's in Cooke's machinery.

 

I'd have to agree with Mark re his comparison to Alan Jones - close but not quite as quick. Excellent racing driver though - maybe with the same Grand Prix experience as AJ had, who knows......

[MarkBisset]

Great stuff Lindsay- love the shots especially the T430 @ AIR.

Whenever I think of Warwick it's the thriller-diller of a weekend at Sandown in January '75 when he won the Tasman- only Skip to do so from John Walker and Graeme Lawrence- all three in T332's, JW's Repco powered.

I was there all weekend and lapped it up- who to support?, the Kiwi was always a racer I admired, then their was the 'Blueblood' from Wahroonga or the battler from the Adelaide suburbs. If truth be known I should have gone for JW- that really would have been fairy tale stuff but it was not to be with that shocker of a shunt on Sunday- how lucky was he?!

It's interesting in the ways that both Warwick's and John's driving went up a notch after their respective US L&M Tours in 1974 and 1973 respectively. They came back quicker and more confident having swum in a bigger pool for a bit I reckon.

Anyway, it was always going to be WB for me and so it was that he got the point he needed despite a 'splash n dash'- and bad luck to the other dudes of course.

He raced the Talon nee McRae GM2 in the US that year- not the tool to have at all, still didn't hold him back.

Check out this article if only for Robert Davies amazing shot of JW cheating the grim reaper- he really was a very, very lucky boy that day!

https://primotipo.co...wn-tasman-1975/

Mark

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by MarkBisset
.....It's interesting in the ways that both Warwick's and John's driving went up a notch after their respective US L&M Tours in 1974 and 1973 respectively. They came back quicker and more confident having swum in a bigger pool for a bit I reckon.....

In my conversation with Bobby Muir today he made the very same point...

He had been in America and returned to be gifted the drive of the Bob & Marj Brown Birrana at Amaroo.

"With all the racing I'd done in America, I was really switched on," he said, "it was easy to run away with that race..." and the rest of it was about the power available from the Hart twin-cam compared to the twin-cam he'd used at the previous meeting in Terry Quartly's Rennmax.

He was in fact doing a lot of racing that year and it's obvious it showed in his results with the Birrana. So impressed were the Browns, who had reached the point that they were about to pull out of racing because of their lack of success, that they took the car to England for Bob to drive.

[Murray Lord]

Ray, how about expanding on your comment (eighteen years ago, admittedly) about "intercity record breaking in the dead of night in Pat Burke's Porsche"?

[MarkBisset]

Ray,
It's interesting Bob's comments about how quick he was in '74- his dices with Leo that year were terrific having seen two of the rounds. Interested in his comments, given he said the Sub was heavy relative to the BN3's of how RayWinter and Mawer's developed the Sub- it was a jet despite its age in Winters hands in 1974/5?
How do you all rate him as a steerer? (Winter)
M

[Wirra]

Eastern Creek - 2010

 

 

 

Edit. Just noticed evidence of a 'workshop' accident and TNF'er 'eldougo' roaming off a leash.

Edited by Wirra, 10 February 2018 - 07:20.

[Wirra]

A very early F5000 outing in the M10B

 

[E1pix]

Fantastic, Wirra! 

 

That darned Eldougo!!!     

[ellrosso]

Finally found the pics of WB at Eastern Creek Tasman Revival meeting 2010.