Crash Cannot Keep Brabham on Sidelines : Auto racing: Despite injuries, driver plans to compete for fourth Camel GT title in a row.

Geoff Brabham has won the International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GT championship three years in a row, and four broken ribs, two compressed vertebrae and serious cuts on his face and legs won’t keep him from going for No. 4.

Brabham, 39, was leading Chip Robinson, his Nissan teammate, by 13 points with two races remaining when he was injured last month in a testing accident three days before the Grand Prix of Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. Robinson finished second in that race and moved three points ahead of Brabham.

The final race is Oct. 13 at Del Mar--the Camel Grand Prix of Greater San Diego.

“I’m not going to give up without a fight,” Brabham said from his home in Noblesville, Ind., after arriving there Thursday from Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where he had been airlifted immediately after the accident.

“It hurts to breathe, it hurts to laugh and when I cough it feels like four people stabbing me at the same time,” he said. “I don’t know how long it will take me to recuperate, but I definitely plan on being at Del Mar.”

The championship remains much in doubt with Robinson at 166 points, Brabham at 163 and Davy Jones, in a Jaguar, at 156. There is a five-point spread between first and second, plus there are bonus points for winning the pole, the fastest race lap and most laps led.

“My goal hasn’t changed,” Brabham said. “I still want to win, and if I can get healed up by then I think I can do it.”

Brabham remembers little about the accident.

“All I know is that before I got to the braking area in Turn 1, something apparently happened to a tire and the car flipped backwards and took off cartwheeling. The only thing I remember is looking down at the ground from a very high height.”

Wayne Taylor, team driver for Chevy Intrepid, was right on Brabham’s tail and saw it develop.

“I was just coming out of the pits at the close of the second (practice) session when I saw Geoff’s left rear tire come off the rim,” Taylor said. “The tire came off like a sheet. Geoff went into a spin, getting into the grass.

“Apparently, he must have caught some air under the car, which launched him airborne. He went wildly end over end about three times, his car thrown in the air maybe as high as eight or 10 feet off the ground, smashing the corners of the car with each touch down. There was debris everywhere.

“He came to rest right side up in the gravel pit. I immediately pulled over and jumped out of my car to offer what assistance I could. When I got there, several corner workers were already with him. Geoff was conscious and groaning a lot. I was strangely relieved that he was doing anything, that he was alive. Geoff is a good friend of mine, and it really affected me to see him like that, especially after what our team had been through after Tommy (Kendall’s) bad crash at Watkins Glen.”

Kendall, Taylor’s Intrepid teammate, broke both ankles and legs in the Watkins Glen crash and is recuperating at his home in La Canada. He is not expected to drive until next year.

“This can be a very tough business, but I think the track officials should be commended for making the circuit as safe as it is,” Taylor said. “By extending the gravel pit in Turn 1 after A. J. (Foyt) crashed so badly last year, they probably saved Geoff’s life, or at least saved him more serious injury.”

Brabham stayed in Indiana, rather than return to his other home in Lantana, Fla., to continue therapy at Methodist Hospital under the direction of Terry Trammel, the race drivers’ surgeon.

“I hope to be able to start therapy next week,” Brabham said. “The pain is unbelievable when I move around, but if I get through the next couple of weeks I should start to improve. I’m just very fortunate that the Nissan held together in the front end so I did not get the broken feet like (Tom) Kendall, A. J. and a lot of other guys. It was a tribute to (chassis engineer) Trevor Harris that it did its job.”