24 replies to this topic

[sandy]

I hope that David Brabham's new super car venture is successful.

 

His father was my hero from my mid teens. Every month from the mid 1950s  through to the mid 1960s I looked for the latest mention of Jack in Motor Sport from DSJ.

 

I met him twice. Firstly at Albert Park in 1958 where he was soundly trounced by Stirllng Moss. At the end of the race Jack was standing alone at one end of the pits watching Stirling at the other end and who was surrounded by the press and any number of admirers. Jack's body language simply said "One day, one day, that will be me." But he then set all of that to one side to chat away to a lad in his mid teens.

 

The other occasion was many years later and after he had long retired. I saw Jack in an airllne waiting lounge. Taking a chance on him being approachable I spoke to him, once rmore commencing another chat and again he responded in a friendly and affable manner.

 

That was Jack's style. Unobtrusive, easy going (off the track at any rate), modest, amiable, self affacing, quiet...,

 

It could never be said that the Brabham name was glamorous either the man himself or the cars. They were winners and winners at the highest level but Brabham  is still not a name to match Ferrari, or Maserati when one wants a supercar. To pull up outside the Casino at Monte Carlo in a Brabham will not have the same impact as arriving in a Bugatti Veyron. There is little ferocity, little adventure and little or no glamour in the Brabham name. I hope that is compensated for in their marketing. If anyone wants a potential customer to shell out $1.8 million for a super car called a Brabham, I suggest that the marketing thrust be towards the traditional or historical Brabham qualities - reliability, dependability and if not the fastest of machines, certainly up there when it comes to not having any handling quirks or overwhelmingly specialised maintenance demands.

Edited by sandy, 12 April 2019 - 17:43.

[Derwent Motorsport]

I am pretty sure this was announced about a year ago?  Did he not also have a sort of Crowd Funding scheme even before that?

[john winfield]

Looks great.

 

https://www.google.c...4&bih=625&dpr=1

[Sterzo]

An abiding memory s looking down on Ramp Bend at Crystal Palace, watching Hulme and Brabham in their dominant F2 Brabham-Hondas. They were in close company, lapping at similar speeds. Hulme was neat and restrained. Brabham was all over the place, a wheel on the grass one lap, two feet away from the apex the next. It brought home how there isn't one right way to drive a car.

 

Journalists sometimes suggested that wily Jack Brabham would deliberately throw up stones at pursuers, but I don't think that at all. It was just his style.

[Doug Nye]

...but remember that much of Blackie's style - once he realised the effect it was having upon many (though not all) of his competitors - was perfectly deliberate...

 

He did, however, possess infinitely greater natural talents than many retrospective observers and pundits seem to appreciate.  

 

DCN

[D28]

...but remember that much of Blackie's style - once he realised the effect it was having upon many (though not all) of his competitors - was perfectly deliberate...

 

He did, however, possess infinitely greater natural talents than many retrospective observers and pundits seem to appreciate.  

 

DCN

Right, one does not win all those races and championships without some inherent talent. In a lengthly career he was competitive up to the last, being in a solid 3rd place, when his engine expired, in his final WC F1 outing.

[AAGR]

One of Jack's greatest traits was that in the late 1950s/early 1960s, whenever he finished on pole after qualification, several other drivers said they always ignored the rigmarole of the starter's flag:

 

'Nah, when Jack was on pole, we knew he would often make a demon start - so when he started, we all started too....'

[Doug Nye]

And Jack could possibly have become a four-time World Champion Driver in his final season, of 1970, when after winning the South African GP he only lost the lead on the last corner of the Monaco GP (through his own error) and then again on the last corner of the British GP (through that much-discussed over-rich fuel injection setting, which saw his car's full load consumed prematurely).  Also bear in mind that Jack led that year's F2 race at Tulln-Langenlebarn until the last lap, when his BT30 faltered, allowing Jacky Ickx to pass and win for BMW. And in sports cars he and Francois Cevert won that year's Paris 1,000Kms for Matra...

 

He bowed out near his best - and that was something which he came to regret bitterly in later years, reckoning "If I'd continued I had probably another couple of years in me". But family pressures, after the deaths that year of Bruce McLaren, Piers Courage and Jochen Rindt, proved irresistible.  The clincher he said was when his lifelong No 1 supporter - his Dad - asked him to jack it in while he was still alive and able to do so. 

 

DCN

[GTMRacer]

And Jack could possibly have become a four-time World Champion Driver in his final season, of 1970, when after winning the South African GP he only lost the lead on the last corner of the Monaco GP (through his own error) and then again on the last corner of the British GP (through that much-discussed over-rich fuel injection setting, which saw his car's full load consumed prematurely).  Also bear in mind that Jack led that year's F2 race at Tulln-Langenlebarn until the last lap, when his BT30 faltered, allowing Jacky Ickx to pass and win for BMW. And in sports cars he and Francois Cevert won that year's Paris 1,000Kms for Matra...

 

He bowed out near his best - and that was something which he came to regret bitterly in later years, reckoning "If I'd continued I had probably another couple of years in me". But family pressures, after the deaths that year of Bruce McLaren, Piers Courage and Jochen Rindt, proved irresistible.  The clincher he said was when his lifelong No 1 supporter - his Dad - asked him to jack it in while he was still alive and able to do so. 

 

DCN

He came from that wonderful generation of Southern hemisphere racers, brought up on making do with what you have lying around and using your resourcefulness to get a solution.

I am way too young too have seen him but he is my all time hero, he did it the hard way. Plus, he build the BT24, a pure beauty. I personally think he retired at the right time, he had nothing more to prove.

Just think, if he had died in some stupid, preventable way as so many of his peers did. that would have been truly awful.

[john winfield]

 I personally think he retired at the right time, he had nothing more to prove.

Just think, if he had died in some stupid, preventable way as so many of his peers did. that would have been truly awful.

 

I take your point GTM but something nasty could have happened at any time: the Portuguese GP in 1959, testing at Zandvoort in 1970 etc.

 

At the end of 1970 it does seem that Jack genuinely felt he had some more years racing left in him unlike, say, Denny Hulme in 1974 who, after Peter Revson's fatal accident, seemed to take things more carefully. Damon Hill knew he had to stop, James Hunt too.

 

Whereas Jack, in 1970, aged 43/44, was a genuine front-runner. For 90% of the British GP, on a tiring driver's circuit, and faced with Rindt in the technically advanced Lotus 72, Jack and the BT33 were the fastest combination around. No wonder he fancied another year or two!

 

(As an aside, I wonder if he would have continued with the Matra sports car team. Might he have raced at Le Mans in the Matra glory years?)

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by GTMRacer

.....I am way too young too have seen him but he is my all time hero.....

 

You do have a chance to see him in action, real action...

 

There is undoubtedly on You Tube a copy of the 1968 Warwick Farm Tasman Cup race. In this Jack was working his way up from a start down the grid and driving like a demon. Unfortunately you only get glimpses of him as the cameras follow the Lotus 49s, Amon's Ferrari and Piers Courage in the M4a.

 

But there are times when the camera at Creek Corner shows Jack in the distance as it catches the leaders down the Hume Straight and Jack is off into the dirt on the outside of Homestead Corner tossing up plenty of dust.

 

And on one lap he closes on Frank Gardner in the braking area for Creek Corner, but there really isn't enough room as Gardner moves over just a little, Jack gets a rear wheel either on the painted line or on the grass and the car gets well sideways under brakes at about 150mph.

 

The camera, of course, only catches a glimpse of this, it's following Courage as he challenges Amon and they're swinging into Creek. But you know, you just know, that Jack could not possibly retrieve the car from that angle at that speed, and under brakes, but as they follow the cars into the esses, there he is, still right hard on the tail of Gardner!

 

 

 

 

.

Edited by Ray Bell, 15 April 2019 - 12:20.

[Lee Nicolle]

He came from that wonderful generation of Southern hemisphere racers, brought up on making do with what you have lying around and using your resourcefulness to get a solution.

I am way too young too have seen him but he is my all time hero, he did it the hard way. Plus, he build the BT24, a pure beauty. I personally think he retired at the right time, he had nothing more to prove.

Just think, if he had died in some stupid, preventable way as so many of his peers did. that would have been truly awful.

Yes, an 880 Jap powered midget. A car that is still around.

I ever only saw Jack actually race in the Torana and a couple of 60s F1 cars as historics. In the Brabham he was having a fairly good go, he did not like the McLaren? he drove another time. He said the Brabham was a better car!

Edited by Lee Nicolle, 16 April 2019 - 02:49.

[Roger Clark]

Could Jack Brabham have been more successful in the 1.5-litre years if he had chosen to do so? Dan Gurney was number 1 in the team and deservedly so. He always got the best that MRD could provide when there was any decision to be made. Knowing that it’s you who pays the bills must exercise some constraint. Yet Jack showed on many occasions that he was as fast as ever and, in several non-championship races against top class opposition, that he still had the winning ability. The success in the early 3-litre years when he was again number 1 in his team did not come as a surprise.

[pete53]

Looks great.

 

https://www.google.c...4&bih=625&dpr=1

It does and good to see it has a "BT" suffix.

[D28]

Could Jack Brabham have been more successful in the 1.5-litre years if he had chosen to do so? Dan Gurney was number 1 in the team and deservedly so. He always got the best that MRD could provide when there was any decision to be made. Knowing that it’s you who pays the bills must exercise some constraint. Yet Jack showed on many occasions that he was as fast as ever and, in several non-championship races against top class opposition, that he still had the winning ability. The success in the early 3-litre years when he was again number 1 in his team did not come as a surprise.

I remember reading in R&T late 1965 a preview of the coming 3 l formula, by one of their European correspondents, though I cannot recall which one, They singled out Jack as one of the most likely beneficiaries and mentioned his early oval track experience. The writer was more prescient than even he imagined. Jack did have a few wins in non-title  1.5 l races, but as you say he left the heavy lifting to Gurney,  He really shone with the power formula, and was as competitive as ever right up to the last.

[Mallory Dan]

Much as I admire hugely what Jack achieved, he also had a certain Mr Tauranac's genius in his corner

[doc knutsen]

I hope that David Brabham's new super car venture is successful.

 

His father was my hero from my mid teens. Every month from the mid 1950s  through to the mid 1960s I looked for the latest mention of Jack in Motor Sport from DSJ.

 

I met him twice. Firstly at Albert Park in 1958 where he was soundly trounced by Stirllng Moss. At the end of the race Jack was standing alone at one end of the pits watching Stirling at the other end and who was surrounded by the press and any number of admirers. Jack's body language simply said "One day, one day, that will be me." But he then set all of that to one side to chat away to a lad in his mid teens.

 

The other occasion was many years later and after he had long retired. I saw Jack in an airllne waiting lounge. Taking a chance on him being approachable I spoke to him, once rmore commencing another chat and again he responded in a friendly and affable manner.

 

That was Jack's style. Unobtrusive, easy going (off the track at any rate), modest, amiable, self affacing, quiet...,

 

It could never be said that the Brabham name was glamorous either the man himself or the cars. They were winners and winners at the highest level but Brabham  is still not a name to match Ferrari, or Maserati when one wants a supercar. To pull up outside the Casino at Monte Carlo in a Brabham will not have the same impact as arriving in a Bugatti Veyron. There is little ferocity, little adventure and little or no glamour in the Brabham name. I hope that is compensated for in their marketing. If anyone wants a potential customer to shell out $1.8 million for a super car called a Brabham, I suggest that the marketing thrust be towards the traditional or historical Brabham qualities - reliability, dependability and if not the fastest of machines, certainly up there when it comes to not having any handling quirks or overwhelmingly specialised maintenance demands.

 

 

I would like to add my recollections of meeting Jack Brabham.  Back in 1963, the Kanonloppet at Karlskoga in Sweden was a non-Championship Formula One race, and Clark/Taylor were there for Team Lotus, with Brabham and Hulme also in their regular F1 mounts. After practice, I ventured up to the Gelleraasen farm buildings, where the F1 teams were assembled in one of the barns. Jack Brabham was there, chatting to his mechanic Noddy Grohmann (if my memory serves). As a very keen 13-year old schoolboy, I was pretty much awe-struck but decided to try my stuttering schoolboy English anyway... I found Brabham very approachable and friendly, and he gave this young fan fifteen or twenty minutes of his time with no problem at all. No wonder I have had a soft sport for the marque of Brabham ever since.

[Doug Nye]

What Doc describes is typical of Jack.  Amongst rival racers he perfected the art of saying very little indeed - to avoid them learning, potentially, something to their competitive advantage.  Instead he listened closely - sometimes to his own advantage.  But with fans and enthusiasts he was almost always friendly, open and charming...a proper, unspoiled, modest and truly engaging man. But then we weren't on track, racing against him.  It was then that his driving tactics were often emphatic, fearless, muscular - occasionally tipping over into the unacceptable, dirty. He was hardbitten, just A Racer.

 

After Jack's retirement, a younger Aussie hopeful was selected to join a party flying out to drive in the Singapore GP.  They gathered at Sydney Airport for the flight.  Jack was accompanying them as a celeb guest/Aussie team advisor.  While waiting for their flight they were sitting around a lounge table discussing prospects.  Jack was in silent mode, happy but just listening, and watching. Our hopeful, opposite him, was itching to engage the great man in conversation but - as a tongue-tied newcomer - was absolutely stuck for an opening line.  After long minutes of silent disappointment with himself, he noticed that Jack's brown eyes were focused on something past the newcomer, something (or someone) behind his back.  Jack's eyes tracked whatever it was across the airport lounge.  And then he opened his mouth, and for the first time the star-struck newcomer heard the great man speak.  And he just said...

 

"Goooooaaarrrr - Lookit the tits on that...".

 

A proper bloke.

 

DCN

[Ray Bell]

Ears open as much as they could be...

And eyes always looking at what was going on.

I'm sure I've told the tale before of Jack wandering past the Lotus 59 when owned by Bob Johns. Bob was a very lucky man and had Kevin Carrad doing his spanner work.

As the car was known to have had its knock-on wheels come loose on occasion, Kevin had devised a method of avoiding that happening. He'd put a piece of threaded rod into the outer quarter shafts and the equivalents on the front end, they had the opposite thread direction to the main wheel nuts on each of their corners. A cap that sat over the main nut and a simple nut on the threaded rods completed the picture, if a wheel nut wanted to come undone it would be tightening the newly installed 'locknuts'.

One day Jack was walking by with his head down and caught sight of this arrangement. He stopped to look at it for a short time and then moved on. He was out of open-wheelers by this time, but he was still keen to learn.

[Collombin]

Right, one does not win all those races and championships without some inherent talent. In a lengthly career he was competitive up to the last, being in a solid 3rd place, when his engine expired, in his final WC F1 outing.

Anytime I hear someone rave about Senna's performance in the all star Merc saloon race at the (ahem) "Nurburgring" in 1984, it is always nice to point out that Senna's fastest lap was slower than the 58 year old Jack Brabham's.

[Ray Bell]

Ah yes, as he was getting older...

At Sandown in 1978 he said to me of Fangio, "It gives you heart to see him driving like that at his age."

Years later there were times when Jack was seen to be giving various cars a footfull. A report in Motor Sport about a Brabham celebration day at one of the British circuits related how he jumped into somebody's car and did a few laps.

I guess this was an FVA-powered F2 or similar, and he not only bested the owner's time but kept on going long after the flag went out to wave him in.

By the way, does anyone recall which circuit that was?

[Regazzoni]

Anytime I hear someone rave about Senna's performance in the all star Merc saloon race at the (ahem) "Nurburgring" in 1984, it is always nice to point out that Senna's fastest lap was slower than the 58 year old Jack Brabham's.

This race? [genuine curiosity as I don't recall a thing about that race, but looks like quite a few people went faster that day. Apologies for the OT]

 

[charles r]

This has probably been discussed before, but I couldn't track the thread down. What were the reasons behind Denny leaving Brabham (as WDC) for McLaren at the end of 1967?

[john winfield]

This has probably been discussed before, but I couldn't track the thread down. What were the reasons behind Denny leaving Brabham (as WDC) for McLaren at the end of 1967?

 

From what I've read I think Denny found Bruce a more inspirational and likeable man, at least easier to get along with. Perhaps a few years with Jack was enough by late 1967. Also, by 1968, I think Denny already had experience of working with Bruce in Can-Am, and Phil Kerr, an old friend of Denny's, was now working at McLaren.

 

Reading that back I seem critical of Jack, but don't mean to be. Prospects at McLaren, inside and outside F1, must have been quite appealing to Denny.  Lots of kiwis too!

Edited by john winfield, 29 April 2019 - 18:29.

[Ray Bell]

...and McLaren had the Cosworth DFV...

Jack didn't.