Old Hat
Editorial
In this issue you will find a story I wrote back well before OBA began, based on an interview I conducted with Sir Jack Brabham, who sadly passed away on May 19th. It’s not a long story, because Jack was never big on words, but the short time I spent with him at his Sydney home in Caringbah was fascinating to me because we talked not so much about cars, but of our mutual affection for motorcycles – and specifically Velocettes. It was a great thrill to me when Jack insisted on a short ride on my Velocette Sportsman (I must admit that I had ridden it to the interview with exactly that in mind).
We all owe a great deal to Jack, because his success at an international level completely and very quickly changed the face of Australian motor sport. In the avalanche of enthusiasm for motor racing that followed his consecutive World Championships in Formula One (19591960), new circuits sprang up everywhere. Lakeside, Calder, Oran Park and Sandown were all constructed in a very short space of time and without them, motorcycle racing would have been in poor shape indeed.
As taciturn and self-effacing as he was off the track, Jack was a positive tiger behind the wheel. Watching the recent F1 Monaco Grand Prix, and the resultant display of childish petulance by former World Champion Lewis Hamilton, who wanted everyone to know how deeply hurt he was because his team “mate” – and I use the term loosely – Nico Rosberg, had reputedly gained an unfair advantage during qualifying. I wonder how poor, wounded Lewis would have coped with a dose of Jack’s famous technique to deter attacks from the rear, whereby he would drop a wheel or two off the track edge, showering the assailant with dirt and grass. Stirling Moss copped more than his fair share of this treatment, but just shrugged it off with “I just ducked”. At least the Monaco GP rostrum ceremony, metaphorically littered with the toys Hamilton had chucked out of his pram in his dyspeptic display, was entertaining, which is more than could be said for the race, watched by the sparsest crowd in living memory at what is supposed to be the showpiece of the F1 season.
Frankly, I’m over fainting footballers, tennis tantrums and gloomy, club throwing golfers. Poor little Lewis, hard done by as he allegedly was, at least increased his bank account by trousering another mill or so after less than two hours work – a far cry from the austere times endured by the likes of Sir Jack Brabham and the gritty band that plied the deadly game of motor racing in the ‘fifties and ’sixties. Times change.