He’s the Rear Admiral of Indy Car Racing : Grand Prix: Jack Brabham, who will drive in today’s pro/celebrity event at Long Beach, brought rear-engine car to Indianapolis 30 years ago.

Thirty years ago next month, Jack Brabham brought an underpowered rear-engine Cooper Climax car from England to Indianapolis and changed the face of racing as it was known in America.

Until then, cars that raced in the Indianapolis 500 and on the United States Auto Club circuit were big, brutish front-engine monsters that needed manhandling more than caressing to finish. Brabham didn’t win that 1961 race--he finished ninth--but it was apparent that the nimble, more maneuverable rear-engine car was the wave of the future.

By 1969, there wasn’t a front-engine car among the 33 starters in the Indianapolis 500.

Sir Jack Brabham, as he has been known since being knighted by the Queen, arrived here Wednesday from Australia to drive in today’s Toyota Pro/Celebrity race. It is part of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, which will wind up Sunday with the second CART/ PPG Cup Indy car race of 1991.

It was Brabham’s trip to California for a Formula One race at Riverside in November 1960 that set in motion the racing revolution.

“While I was at Riverside, some USAC fellows were there looking on and asked me why I didn’t bring my car to Indy and see how it would run on the big oval at the Speedway,” Brabham reminisced. “So on my way back to England, I stopped off (at Indianapolis) and gave it a try.

“The first thing I did was get in trouble with the chaps there. They told me I had to take a driver’s test (at the time Brabham was the world champion) before I could get up to speed. They told me to do 10 laps at 100 m.p.h., then 10 more at 110 and come in, and they’d tell me if I could go any faster.

“Well, I didn’t know how fast I was going. I had never been on an oval track before and I took the car out as if I might (have done if it had) been a reasonable time trial. My first lap was 130, and when I came around they were flagging me in, madder than wet hens.”

The Indy qualifying record at the time was 149.056 m.p.h. by Jim Hurtubise.

“By the way, I should have won that race at Riverside,” Brabham said, his thoughts returning to 1960. “I had won five Grand Prix in a row and I was leading at Riverside when my car caught fire.”

Brabham finished fourth, clinching his second consecutive world championship, as Stirling Moss won the only Formula One race held at Riverside.

“I came back the next year and won the Times Grand Prix at Riverside, and they gave me the Pontiac pace car. I always liked that track. It had a lot of character.

“The last time I was there, I drove in one of Toyota’s father-son celebrity races with Geoff. There were Unsers and Andrettis and some other families entered. I remember it well because I beat Geoff. I like to remind him of that.

“Geoff (Can-Am champion at the time) was catching me, and when we reached Turn 9 he was determined to pass, but he lost it and spun out. It was probably just as well, because if he hadn’t, he might have shunted me off the circuit.”

On the way home from Indianapolis to England in 1960, Brabham decided to build a special car for the next year’s Indy 500, powered by a modified Formula One Climax engine.

“We were terribly short on horsepower,” Brabham recalled. “We had a stretched-out 2.7-liter engine, and the front-engine cars had 4.2 liters. We had to use the 2.7 because it was the only one available that would fit in our chassis. The first time I went out on the track, everyone laughed. They nicknamed it the ‘Funny Car,’ and they couldn’t stop laughing.

“One fellow who didn’t see anything funny about it was Rodger Ward. He had won Indy the year before and when he saw how easily we cornered and how maneuverable the Cooper was on the track, he said, ‘Hey guys, don’t laugh. This guy is on to something.’ ”

Brabham returned to Indy in 1964, ’69 and ’70 in Brabham cars of his own design, but he never had the success with them that he had in Formula One, where in 1966 he became the only person to win both the driving and manufacturers’ championships in a car of his own design.

“Winning in my own car, with an Australian Repco engine, was the greatest thrill of my life,” he said.

Brabham cars, with Denny Hulme and Brabham driving, finished one-two in Formula One in 1967, but in 1971 Jack sold his team to Bernie Ecclestone and retired, both as driver and car owner.

“I had been living most of the time in England for 17 years, traveling all over the world, and I felt it was time to go back home to Sydney,” he said. “When I sold the team to Bernie, he kept the Brabham name, but I have nothing to do with it, except to read the papers and see how it does.”

Brabham, who turned 65 on April 2, has sold the ranch and aircraft business that kept him busy after his retirement from racing. His sole business venture in Australia now is the new Eastern Creek Raceway in Sydney, which opened last week with a crowd of 76,000 fans for a world motorcycle road race championship event won by Wayne Rainey of Downey.

The track in Sydney means Brabham has gone full circle from the day in 1947 when he first drove a midget car on a cinder track in his hometown.

“Eastern Creek is a proper race track, not like this,” he said, waving his hand at the tight, barrier-lined street circuit in Long Beach. “The first race was fantastic, but the homefolks might have enjoyed it more if the Aussie (Mike Doohan) had beaten the American chap.”

Rainey and Doohan will be at Laguna Seca next week for the third round of the world championship season.

“I can’t get used to a race track where they put it up, run on it, tear it down and then put it up again the next year,” Brabham said. “I find it hard to get serious about it.”

Brabham did admit to having some serious thoughts about today’s 10 laps on the 11-turn, 1.67-mile temporary course.

“I wonder what my chances are of getting around Dan Gurney and Parnelli Jones without getting punted into the fence,” he said with a laugh. “Dan won two races for me in 1964, so he ought to be nice to me. On the other hand, he might want to win for a birthday present.”

Gurney, one of America’s most heralded drivers who is now running the Toyota GTP program in IMSA, will be 60 today.

From Long Beach, Brabham and his wife will go to Miami to visit two of their racing sons, Geoff and Gary, then to London for a reunion with the youngest member of the racing family, David.

“I guess all of them are racing because they grew up in the environment, going to the races with me all the time,” the father said. “I didn’t enourage them to race--they all did it by themselves--but I never discouraged them, either. I guess the racing bug couldn’t help but rub off some.”

Geoff, 39, is the three-time defending IMSA champion in a Nissan and a veteran of eight Indy 500s. Gary, 30, won the 1989 British Formula 3,000 championship and is seeking a full-time ride in the United States. David, 25, who drove in Formula One last year with the Brabham-Judd team, is racing on the European 3,000 circuit this season.

“Formula One is a lot different from my day,” Brabham said. “It has become much too businesslike, too professional. There doesn’t seem to be any fun in it. And the costs have become so astronomical that the most important thing has become the ability to acquire monumental sponsorships.

“If I were starting in today, I would much rather race with CART in an Indy car than with Formula One. At least, all the drivers talk to one another.”

But what will he say late today after jousting with Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones and a host of other celebrities, including Tony Dorsett, Leeza Gibbons, Donny Osmond, James B. Sikking and Mark Wallengren?