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[Ray Bell]

The scene is Warwick Farm, a testingly twisty circuit (now long closed) in what was then an outer Sydney suburb. From the end of the longest straight, Hume Straight, a hairpin through 180 degrees leads to a left, right and left, all of around 90 degrees, then a slightly uphill rush to a right kink followed by a right kink that becomes the right hander of a fast right and left ess bend.
This ends alongside a small lake, where two black swans swim about, and over which there is a causeway entered via a tight left and exited by an almost as tight left. My position is at the apex of the fast left.
Piers Courage last year (1968) drove a McLaren M4a with a 1600cc Cosworth FVA, but now is equipped with a Brabham with wings front and rear. Tall wings, acting directly on the suspension like they won’t be able to have in a few months. He hares out of the esses, through the kinks that take the circuit over the horse race track and into the fast esses – sideways and with heaps of power on.
The nose of the Brabham is up, the car is sliding, then with a flick of the steering and quick change on the throttle it changes to a full-blooded slide in the opposite direction, perfectly set up for the left hander past me.
Just watching is a pleasure, but then there is another part to this act.
With a sudden precision, the nose of the car dips and the noise of the Cosworth V8 stops for an instant. The whole car shifts a foot outwards from its trajectory. The nose lifts again, the noise resumes, at a slightly different level as a higher gear has been picked up.
He continues this for a number of laps, and later in the day Derek Bell does the same in the little 2.4 V6 Ferrari. Both finally resolve their gear ratio situation to allow them to take this section without changing cogs. And it is all in vain, for on race day the heavens would open.
This brought a superb victory to Jochen Rindt in the high-winged Lotus 49, with Graham Hill doing fastest lap.
Frankly, I prefer to remember the sensation of Courage’s practice laps.