Black Jack Brabham: In A Class Of His Own

June 4, 2014
Story By
Curtis Cummings

Motorsport has always attracted giants and innovators, bad-asses and also-rans. Everyone recognizes names like Foyt, Gurney and Shelby. Back before sponsors demanded good behavior from their drivers, some champions would run their mouths as fast as their cars, some were flashy and cool, and others just squinted their eyes and let their right foot do all the talking. And any contender worth his sweat-soaked bandana knows that sometimes it’s the quiet ones that are the most dangerous.

Jack Brabham liked messing around with engines. Growing up in the Australian countryside, he learned some basics in the Aussie Air Force and upon discharge, opened a small machine shop and auto repair business. Soon after that, an American friend took Jack to his first competition, a Speedcars race on a dirt oval. Australian Speedcars were the same as Midgets in the US and were hugely popular Down Under. The American persuaded Jack to build him a car so he could get in on the fun and try to win a few bucks. Brabham agreed to build the car but had no interest in climbing into the cockpit, saying that auto racers “were all lunatics.” The post-war era was incredibly dangerous as far as driver mortality, and after only a few races the American’s wife put her foot down and he was forced to hang up his goggles. Jack looked at the racer he’d built and figured it would be a shame to just let it just rust away. After all, how dangerous could it be? From his first race on the ultra-competitive Speedcar dirt circuit, Brabham showed a natural talent for car control. By his third race he was winning, and from then, he was hooked. For the next seven years (1948-54) Jack dominated Australian auto racing winning multiple championships on both dirt tracks and road courses. He earned the nickname “Black” Jack either for his thick, dark hair and stubble, or for his ruthless technique on the track. His quiet ways could also be the reason for the name, since he was regarded as a mystery by the other drivers for his shadowy silence. In 1955, with the classic circuits of Europe calling his name, Brabham cleaned the dirt out of his teeth for the last time and through grit and determination landed a spot on the Cooper Formula One Team. John Cooper was an innovator and his rear-engined cars were competitive. At 29, Jack found himself on an English track dicing with none other than the great Stirling Moss. By 1959 he was Formula One World Champion. And then, just to drive home to anyone who had any doubts, he did it again in 1960.

The paydays of the time weren’t anything like today’s jackpots. Racing drivers had to be out almost every weekend driving in one series or another to earn a living. The biggest event in auto racing, by far, was the Indianapolis 500. A win there meant serious money. Indianapolis was the home of heavy and powerful front-engined roadsters. They had to be muscled around the track - straining brakes and wearing out tires. That’s the way it had always been and that was the way it was going to stay. But in 1962 Jack the mechanic, Jack the tinkerer, had an idea. Something new was going to hit the brickyard. Adapting a Cooper F1 car with an Indy engine- mounted in the rear- Brabham was about to kick tradition right Down Under.

Tough-as-nails drivers that had been raised on dirt tracks and suckled on burned motor oil didn’t think much about the little green car with the engine in the wrong place or the foreigner driving it. Some of the Indy veterans took notice when Black Jack qualified the car ninth, but most of them saw the little British road racer as a fragile novelty that wouldn’t last. During the race, Brabham took the lighter and better handling car as far as third place before finishing ninth. Some were happy that the roadsters hadn’t been defeated, but Dan Gurney and others saw the future. Brabham had triggered the “rear-engine revolution” and within only a few years, what once were the dominant roadsters would become museum pieces.

Jack returned to Formula One with a bigger, more complex goal in mind - to engineer, build and race his own cars and run his own team. Jack produced a tidy racer for the then 1.5 liter F1 championship. Team Brabham suffered reliability problems, and on top of it, Jack never liked the small engines of the time, thinking that they were unworthy of the premier motor racing series of the world. The governing body came to their senses and for 1966 the engines would be doubled in size. Jack watched every other team rush into heavy, thirsty and undeveloped V12 screamers for power. He opted for a simpler and more reliable Repco V8, built in Australia and based on an Oldsmobile block. The automotive press had been annoying him, running stories about his age, asserting that 40 was too old to be competitive in this fast new formula. At the French Grand Prix, Jack in his self-built Brabham took home the win. By the end of the year, more wins came and he had secured the World Championship for a third time. Black Jack became the first - and still only - driver to win the championship in a car that boasted his own name. ’67 was another big year with Jack’s teammate, Denny Hulme, winning the Championship. Golden days for a small town mechanic. Black Jack stayed competitive and winning during motor racing’s most dangerous era right up to his final year as a driver in 1970. Jack Brabham was a key inspiration for both Bruce McLaren and Dan Gurney to start their own teams, build their own cars, and beat the establishment. Jack Brabham passed away recently on May 18, 2014. In a moving tribute, Dan Gurney wrote, "…Bruce McLaren and I won races but Sir Jack Brabham won World Championships, and so he will forever be in a class all by himself. I will miss you Jack! You showed the way!”

The full text of Dan Gurney’s tribute to Sir Jack Brabham can be seen here, allamericanracers.com/sir-jack-brabham.

Black Jack Brabham: In A Class Of His Own

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