Jack Brabham’s finest Goodwood moments

1955: British circuit debut

In terms of British and European motorsport, Goodwood was where it all began for Jack Brabham. That said, his maiden race on UK soil wasn’t one he would remember with any fondness.

Having built his reputation on Australia’s dirt tracks and then in his beloved Redex Special Cooper-Bristol, Brabham reckons he was led by what turned out to be bad advice when it came to the first racing car he chose after making the long journey to Europe. Convinced he needed a modern twin-overhead camshaft engine, Brabham sold the Redex to Stan Jones — father of the other Australian future World Champion, Alan — and bought from Peter Whitehead a Cooper Alta 2.0-litre Formula 2 car.

Brabham subsequently dismissed the Alta engine as “rubbish” and was less than impressed with the Cooper’s centre lock wire wheels, which were a deal heavier than the standard cast-alloy versions. Having gained an entry for the Glover Trophy on Easter Monday, Brabham struggled and then ran out of fuel. He’d secured a supply from Esso, but his unfamiliarity with methanol caught him out and he was two gallons short.

Still, he’d made an impression. Autosport gave him a glowing report: “This Aussie is certainly a presser-onner, and possesses remarkable control over his car. More will be heard from this young gentleman.”

1958: Brabham vs. Hill, Cooper vs. Lotus

The first of consecutive victories in the Formula 2 Lavant Cup was a key landmark in Brabham’s rise to the status of solid-gold frontrunner. He found himself pitched against another rising star, Graham Hill, in a battle that also happened to feature the two British constructors that would lead the rear-engined revolution into the decade that followed.

In his autobiography, Brabham described the Easter Lavant Cup in 1958 as a “real bar-room brawl of a race” as he and Hill had some fun. “We passed and repassed until he retook the lead and held it until the last lap,” Brabham recalled. “I’d tried everything, and eventually decided there was only one way to get by and that was across the infield grass at Woodcote to enter the chicane first, then I would hold him off to the finish line! I managed it… just!”

In front of a crowd of 60,000 braving icy conditions, Brabham spun in the F1 Glover Trophy on oil dropped by the failing Climax in the back of Stirling Moss’s Rob Walker Cooper. But he still recovered to finish a distant second to Mike Hawthorn’s Ferrari. Momentum for the Aussie was building nicely.

1959: Brabham vs. Salvadori

The following year, Brabham was disappointed to lose the Easter F1 race in Cooper’s new 2.5-litre to Moss’s similar Walker car, in the wake of his first win in the top division at Silverstone’s International Trophy. But again, the Lavant Cup offered light relief.

This time, Brabham was pitched against Roy Salvadori in Tommy Atkins’ Cooper. Brabham opened up an early lead, only for ‘Salvo’ to come back at him and hit the front from lap 6. Brabham was back in front by lap ten and just held off the Atkins Cooper by 0.4sec for a photo finish at the chequered flag.

1963: Brabham in a Brabham

After back-to-back F1 World Championships with Cooper in 1959 and 1960, Brabham chose to tread his own path by setting up as an eponymous constructor, and in 1963 he returned to the Glover Trophy as Jack Brabham — in a Brabham.

Driving Ron Tauranac’s first F1 car, the BT3, Brabham found his lowered and lightened car “terrific” around Goodwood’s fast curves, only for his short-stroke Climax to gasp due to an ignition wire coming loose. He was classified sixth.

But the same day, Brabham was pepped up by success for others among his Brabham stable. In the Formula Junior race, Frank Gardner prevailed in Ian Walker’s Brabham, with his own works driver Denny Hulme making it a close-fought 1-2.

1964: A Galaxie upside down

Brabham’s recall of Easter 1964 included this alarming scare in the saloon car race. At Snetterton, he’d claimed an overall win in Alan Brown’s huge Ford Galaxie, and now ‘Brownie’ invited him back for Goodwood. But in Saturday practice it all went wrong.

Coming out of the chicane, Brabham felt something was amiss and braked early for Madgwick. “Sure enough, I had a puncture, the tyre collapsed and the car careered straight off into the bank, reared up and rolled right over,” he wrote. “I looked out the side window and found myself eye-to-eye with a group of white-faced spectators!”

Upon his return to the paddock, Brabham saw ‘Brownie’ running towards him, but not in concern for his well-being. “How bad’s my car?” were the owner’s only words. As Jack put it, with a degree of pith, “To be honest, it wasn’t too good.”

1966: Brabham’s sign-off

Two years later, Jack Brabham and Brabham cars stole the show at what was sadly the final international race meeting to be held at Goodwood, before it closed to racing for the next 32 years.

First, the Formula 3 race. Chris Irwin got the better of Chris Williams on the penultimate lap as Brabhams claimed the first five places.

Next up, the saloons. Brabham was back in an Alan Brown car, this time a Ford Mustang, sandwiched on the front row by Jim Clark’s Lotus Cortina and Mike Salmon’s Mustang. But a puncture before the start meant Jack began the race with a new and unscrubbed rear tyre, which took time to rubber up. Once it did, he came back into the picture, chasing Brian Muir’s Galaxie to the flag in a suitably frenetic saloon car sign-off for the Motor Circuit — at least for the time being.

Then came the big race of the day. No F1 cars at that final meeting in 1966, so 1,000cc F2 stepped up as the headline act, for the 42-lap Sunday Mirror International Trophy.

In truth, it proved something of a Brabham benefit, in a season during which Jack and Denny Hulme mirrored what they were achieving in F1 with Repco power by also dominating the second-tier category with Honda’s fierce-sounding four-cylinder. Brabham and Hulme lined up on the front row, with Jackie Stewart’s new Tyrrell-run Matra-Cosworth beside them.

As Denis Jenkinson reported for Motor Sport, “It only needed the opening lap for the destination of the first three places to be settled, barring accidents, for the two Brabham-Hondas just ran away from everyone except Stewart, and though the Matra driver kept the leaders in sight he could do nothing about them and Brabham led his team-mate in a 42-lap tour of domination.

“The two Japanese engines sounded most impressive and never looked like faltering, while Hulme sat quietly behind his ‘guvnor’ and neither looked as if they were trying very hard.”

Stewart lost third place when a broken throttle pedal caused a grassy moment, which allowed the Roy Winkelmann Cosworth-powered Brabhams of Jochen Rindt and Alan Rees to finish third and fourth, with Graham Hill completing a Brabham top-five sweep in John Coombs’s BRM-powered BT16.

What a way for Brabham to sign off an era, at the circuit where it had all begun for him so frustratingly 11 years earlier. But as Jenks recalled, the final big period motor race of Goodwood’s first era ended on an odd note. That F2 race gained an extra lap. “The flagman let them go for one more before waving the chequered flag for Jack Brabham,” reported DSJ. “Maybe it was thought that as it was the end of the last ‘big’ race at Goodwood they would let them have ‘one for luck’.”

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