25 YEARS LATER . . . : HE’S A SON OF A GUNNER : Jack Brabham Started a Revolution at the 1961 Indy; Now, Son Geoff Seeks to Rally ‘Round Checkered Flag

A funny thing happened to A.J. Foyt’s car on its way to victory in the 1961 Indianapolis 500.

Obsolescence.

While a brash, young Foyt was muscling a brutish Offenhauser-powered roadster to the first of his four triumphs here, Australian Jack Brabham, Black Jack, the champion of the European Formula One road racing circuit, was driving his dainty little Cooper-Climax to a ninth-place finish.

By such barely noticeable sparks are revolutions ignited.

That revolution touched off by Brabham 25 years ago turned the traditional roadster into a dinosaur at the height of its development and changed the face of racing in this country forever.

Who, for instance, would ever have thought to race the hairy-chested roadsters through the streets of Long Beach? Who would ever have known that a tub could be the starting point of a race car, not something merely to bathe in? Who, for pity’s sake, would ever have considered that a race-winner might prefer a sip of champagne to a slug of milk?

Brabham’s idea was that a light-weight, unit-bodied car with its engine mounted behind the driver--in other words, a Formula One car--could out-finesse the heavier, clumsier front-engine roadsters.

Right idea, wrong car. Not so much wrong car, in fact, as wrong engine. Although the Cooper was every bit as nimble through the turns as Brabham had hoped, the Climax half of his motoring package displaced only 167.6 cubic inches, compared to the Offy’s 255.

That left him at a severe disadvantage on the straights, where power prevails.

Mostly, the American car racing Establishment laughed at Brabham’s idea. It might work in them sporty car races over there in France and England, they said, but here? That’s a laugh.

Indeed, it was such a giggle that Indy aficionados took to calling Brabham’s mount a funny car, long before that derisive term became the respected designation for a particular kind of drag-racing machine.

Race day showed how right they were. Sure, Brabham finished ninth, but he never really ran with the leaders, never was a threat. Good old American know-how had dealt with that feeble European intrusion. So much for light-weight, rear-engine stuff, boys. Up with the roadster and down with the funny cars.

At least one American was impressed, though. Dan Gurney of Santa Ana, then a Formula One driver, was intrigued by the thought of such a car in oval track racing and the next year paid the air fare from England to Indy for Colin Chapman, whose Lotus operation was riding high in Formula One. There were no rear-engine cars in that 1962 race, but never again would that be true of another 500.

Chapman saw the same possibilities that Brabham had seen but also realized the need for a bit more engine. With Gurney’s help, he persuaded Ford to build special racing V-8s for his Lotus cars.

Two of the Lotus-Fords were entered in the 1963 race, one for Scotsman Jim Clark, Chapman’s lead driver, and one for Gurney. They were immediately competitive. Clark qualified fifth and Gurney 12th, they ran 1-2 at one point in the race, then finished second and seventh, dealing a crushing blow to the Offy-powered roadster.

Later that year, Clark and the Lotus-Ford won a 200-miler on the mile track at Milwaukee, and the revolution was in full swing.

Foyt gave the roadster its final moment of glory in the 1964 500, then Clark won in a Lotus in ‘65, Englishman Graham Hill won in a Lola in ‘66, and the roadster passed quietly into the dinosaurs’ graveyard, to be followed a decade later by the four-cylinder Offenhauser engine.

All of that was caused by Jack Brabham and his little Cooper-Climax.

So here we are, 25 years later and, in this age of second-generation drivers, another Brabham, Jack’s son Geoff, will be on the starting grid for today’s 500. That’s really nothing new, since he has driven in the last five races here. Surely, though, such an auspicious anniversary must make this particular race something special, a little more meaningful, right?

“No, I don’t think so, not really,” said the young Brabham, obviously more into the practical than the traditional. “I think the race is always important, it doesn’t matter what year it is. Twenty-five years is a long time ago.”

But wait a minute. Isn’t this the guy who has made a crusade of winning the 500? Didn’t he even move from sunny San Clemente to nearby Noblesville just to be more into the Indy scene?

“The race had something to do with it, plus you have to be here for a whole month,” Brabham said. “But most of our races are not too far from this area. I found that living in California I had to spend so much time on an airplane because it’s not just the races you have to go to, but it’s also the testing in between.

“I’d be racing in Cleveland one week, testing in Michigan that same week and racing at Pocono the next. It’s just that it was very tiring. I felt that maybe I could at least go home here and recharge my batteries.”

So much for sentimentality. But then, what would you expect from a fellow whose father started a revolution?

Actually, Brabham, at 32, would very much like to win here today, anniversary or no. In fact, he would very much like to win a race anywhere. A successful driver at all other levels he has tried--in Australia, Europe and the United States--Brabham still is winless in Indy cars. It helps not a bit that he is known as the best driver who’s never won on the Indy car circuit.

“I’m disgusted,” he said, laughing. “It’s been frustrating. We could have won three races last year if we hadn’t had any silly little things go wrong during the race. It’s just a matter of simply breaking the ice. Once we’ve done that, I think it’s going to be a lot easier. But if it was easy, everyone would do it.”

Silly little things might have kept Brabham out of the winner’s circle last year, but he has been battling something worse here this month, an ill-handling car. He aborted one attempt to qualify, then came back later and settled for the slowest qualifying speed in the field.

“The handling’s been a problem,” he said. “In qualifying, the car was reasonable the first lap--I was just under 209--and then it just went away. The last lap I could only do 204, and that’s what brought my average down to where I had to sweat it out the last day of qualifying.”

Brabham will be starting 20th--middle of the seventh row--in his Lola-Cosworth. That’s not a particularly desirable starting spot, but it’s not totally foreign to Brabham, either.

“I started back (26th) in ’83 and I was running second at 100 laps,” he said. “If your car is working well, it doesn’t take very long to get up to the front. If your car’s not working very well, then it doesn’t matter anyway.”

Brabham also said that his father comes over from Australia two or three times a year to watch him race, but that Black Jack won’t be here today.

“He was going to come here, but my little brother’s just started racing in Australia,” Brabham said. “He needs probably a bit more help than I do.”

Perhaps it’s just as well. There’s no revolution brewing here anyway.