Back in Oz
With just the Peugeot Le Mans deal and four IROC races in his diary, Brabham accepted an offer from Glenn Seton to drive the second Peter Jackson EB Falcon with David ‘Skippy’ Parsons at Sandown and Bathurst in late 1993. It was the rst time he’d raced in Australia for 12 years, and it resulted in a most unlikely victory.
“I came back and won the Sandown 500, which was cool. We had a good run and a lot of other people had issues, but I felt I was reasonably competitive with everyone. Our car was actually jumping out of gear, so we struggled to make it to the end, but I think everybody was. We were the last man standing basically.”
Back home in America, Geoff – now in his 40s and with a baby son – began pondering his future, wondering whether they should stay in the US or return to Australia. Before he could even consider a possible V8 future in Oz, an opportunity arose in the developing 2.0-litre Super Touring category.
“I was thinking of just stopping and Frank
Gardner rang up and said, ‘Do you want to come back to Australia and drive BMWs?’ I said yes, but in hindsight it probably wasn’t a good thing for me to do. “I found the cars incredibly boring to drive after what I’d been driving, and I know
I wasn’t driving at the level that gave me satisfaction. I was just going through the motions a little bit. It wasn’t exciting me enough to get me motivated. If I’d come back and done the V8s, I think it would have been a lot better.”
Brabham twice nished series runner-up to team owner Paul Morris in the Diet Coke BMWs, in 1995 and 1997, before scoring a contentious victory with brother David in the ‘official’ Bathurst 1000, two weeks before the V8 Supercars event.
Interestingly, he reveals that Garry Rogers offered him a full-time V8 Supercars drive the following year, but he turned it down. Money was one reason, but he admits it was also because he was unhappy with his driving.
“Secretly inside I knew that I wasn’t driving like I should any more, and I think that was ultimately why I didn’t do it. There was no point doing it unless you were at the top of your game.”
In 1998 he co-drove the Castrol Falcon that Tony Longhurst quali ed second at Bathurst, and they nished eighth. He then nished 10th in 1999 (with Neal Bates in a Tickford Falcon), retired in 2000 (Rod Nash Commodore with Cam McConville), and took seventh with Steve Ellery in the SuperCheap Auto Falcon in 2001.
However, that last race told him it was time to stop. “Somebody hit me going into Forrest’s Elbow and got past, and it just didn’t bother me, whereas before I would have done something about it. So halfway down Conrod I thought, ‘I’m bored, it’s time to stop.’ That was my last race.”
He didn’t announce it, just ‘faded away.’ Matt was keen to race so he became a karting pit dad. And three years ago Matt became the third-generation Brabham to contest the Indy 500. The circle was complete.