MOTORSPORT: 50 years since first Brabham title

David Brabham to drive dad's Cooper-Climax at Sebring
Less than two weeks now to the start of the V8 Supercar Championship, with the race debut of Ford's FG Falcon, and less than three weeks to the Formula 1 season-opening Australian Grand Prix with all-new cars, but it's nostalgia that's captured our imagination at the minute.

Something that's largely escaped attention is that 2009 is the 50th anniversary of the first of Sir Jack Brabham's three F1 world titles.

We've been disappointed not to have seen or heard any announcement by Melbourne's GP organisers of something to mark this anniversary.

We're assured there will be some form of tribute to Sir Jack. The least ought to be that he take part in the F1 driver parade lap at Albert Park on March 29.

This weekend Sir Jack is due to attend the Phillip Island Classic Motorsport Festival, which promises to be a cracker of an event. More on that below.

What has caught our attention recently in the context of Sir Jack's great career is that his youngest son, David, is to drive his Cooper-Climax T51 soon at the circuit where he clinched that 1959 world title -- Sebring.

That famous track in Florida only once staged the United States GP and what made it especially memorable was Brabham pushing his car the last 800 metres into fourth place to become champion.

Brabham had gone to that last round of the championship leading the points.

He qualified second fastest, alongside Stirling Moss in another Cooper-Climax, and led most of the race after his title rivals Tony Brooks and Moss struck trouble.

However, on the last lap Brabham ran out of fuel and had to push his car to the finish line as New Zealander teammate Bruce McLaren took the victory.

The photos of that dramatic climax to the race are a key element of what became the legend of "Black Jack", so named because of the color of his facial stubble.

"You can see from the photos I was really exhausted," said Brabham, now well into his 80s and restricted from global travel by kidney problems.

"My crew had to make sure no one pushed me, as I would have been disqualified."

David Brabham's drive of the Cooper-Climax is set for March 21, the weekend of the Sebring 12-hour sports car classic, the opening round of this year's American Le Mans Series in which he will race the new Acura ARX-02a LMP1 prototype.

The youngest Brabham drove a few F1 races too but is now one of the world's most accomplished sports car racers.

March 21 will be the first time he has driven one of his father's race cars, and the elder Brabham had a word of caution for him.

"David will get a shock driving the car, particularly with the small tyres, etc.," Sir Jack said.

The "youngster", now in his 40s, has said it will be "a bit of a lifetime experience".

"It is such a unique opportunity, not only to drive one of dad's cars, but also to do it at the track 50 years after he won his first F1 world championship," David said.

"It is quite unbelievable. Dad has said the Sebring track was unbelievably rough back then -- and 50 years later nothing has changed!

The Cooper is in near original condition.

It has been owned since 1965 by Ann Finn, and her husband Joel has driven it to victory in numerous historic events over the decades since.

"It still has the original chassis, body, wheels, radiator and the leather-covered steering wheel that were on it when Sir Jack last drove it," Joel Finn said.

"It still has a little bit of accident damage that Jack put on the car in practice at the Sebring event.

"David is going to be surprised ... these old cars certainly do take a lot of getting used to by drivers who grew up piloting modern cars."

So loved by the Finns is the Cooper that three years ago Joel wrote a book, titled Sunshine, Speed and a Surprise -- the 1959 Grand Prix of the United States at Sebring.

Can't say we've seen the book, but it sounds marvellous.

Pity that so much of the history of Sir Jack Brabham is so much better appreciated by people other than his fellow Australians, even those in motorsport.

Phillip Island mecca for classic enthusiasts
Now to the Phillip Island Classic Motorsport Festival this weekend (March 13-15).

More than 560 entries, with capacity grids in many categories and 18 overseas drivers from six countries.

Highlights of the huge entry include:
>> 43 Minis for a special event marking the 50th anniversary of the "brick".
>> A record field of 57 Formula Fords, including eight from outside Australia, chasing 50 grid spots to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the category in Australia.
>> A bumper entry of Group N touring cars, with 18 Torana XU-1s, seven Mustangs, five Falcon GT/GT HOs, four Monaros and two Chargers in the Over 3000cc races.
>> More than 50 Elfins on track or on display to mark the 50th anniversary of the great Aussie sports and open-wheeler manufacturer.
>> An ex-Jean Louis Schlesser factory 1998 Sauber-Mercedes C9 sports car and an ex-Le Mans Porsche 962.
>> Four ex-Formula 1 cars.
>> A capacity grid of 50 production sports cars.

What a line-up. All history yes, but a reminder that Australian motor racing is not all about the modern V8 Supercars.

Glenn Seton is the patron of this year's Phillip Island festival.

Tim Blanchard, the 2007 Australian Formula Ford champion and 2008 British Formula Ford Championship runner-up, will drive a Van Diemen 82.

Blanchard is obviously a fine talent and his return home, largely because of the collapse in the value of the Australian dollar, after just one (fairly successful) season in Britain is a sorry tale of how tough it is for young Aussies to make it to the top internationally.

No mention by the Phillip Island organisers that Tim Schenken will drive at the festival, but the Formula Ford celebrations will serve as a reminder that he was the world's first Formula Ford champion as well as the only Australian to score F1 world championship points apart from Sir Jack Brabham, 1980 world champion Alan Jones and Mark Webber, and that he is the only Aussie to have been a Ferrari factory driver -- in sports cars.

Since his retirement from race driving Schenken's roles, through his position at the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, have included race director of the national touring car series and clerk of course at the Australian GP.

It's set to be a weekend of great machinery and many of the identities who have made the sport what it's been in Australia.

F1 arm wrestle behind the diplomacy
Lots of reports in recent days about the Formula One Teams Association issuing a "road map" for the future of the sport.

Too much detail for us to include it all here, and it is all very iffy, but in essence we see it as the teams trying to regain some/more control of the show in which they are central.

In particular, we note FOTA saying it wants to increase "the spectacle and financial viability of F1".

While there is no sign of warfare or open hostility yet, we suspect the team bosses sense there is an opportunity to wrest some power from long-time F1 commercial tsar Bernie Ecclestone and his associate, Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley.

As we pointed out recently, Ecclestone is almost 80 and Mosley almost 70.

Surely "the spectacle and financial viability of F1" have long been the responsibility of Ecclestone? But what FOTA means by viability is a bigger slice of Ecclestone's financial pie for the teams.

An irony is that Ecclestone rose to power as the predecessor of a teams organisation like FOTA.

Lots more reading on the subject, from crash.net, here, here, here and here.

Pros and cons, and GP gossip
A positive and a negative now on F1, and a few sundries.

The New Scientist has just done a feature on some of the benefits that have come outside F1 as a result of the engineering in the sport.

It was blogger Cliff Kuang who drew our attention to that, here.

General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz has lamented that car racing is providing little benefit to the motor industry other than marketing and has called this year's F1 rules, including the introduction of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS), "Greenwash". More here.

Mark Webber is in the news much more now as the Oz GP approaches.

A Webber feature in London's Sunday Times is here.

And a few other F1 tidbits.
>> Triple world champion Sir Jackie Stewart will forego payment this year for his work as a global ambassador for Royal Bank of Scotland, which has just been bailed out with massive amounts of British government money. Stewart, now 69, has made plenty along the way and can probably easily afford to work gratis.
>> There have been suggestions that Lewis Hamilton sent Felipe Massa a bunch of flowers after snatching last year's F1 world title from him in that thrilling climax to the Brazilian GP. We greatly admired Massa's sportsmanship in accepting his fate after driving such a brilliant race to victory, and he now seems content to enjoy the friendship of rival drivers while Hamilton is widely disliked, but most important is that the history books will forever count Hamilton as the world champion.
>> The father of Lewis Hamilton's childhood sweetheart has been charged with money laundering and fraud involving tens of millions of pounds, see here.

Aussie Marcos Ambrose had the engine blow in his Toyota around half distance at Atlanta and has slipped to 28th in the points.

"We blew up -- not sure what went wrong there," Ambrose said. "We were trucking along there pretty good. We lost a cylinder for about 50 laps and then it finally went.

"We had a lot of speed and it's just shame that we couldn't convert.

"There are a lot of motor issues this year for all manufacturers. I don't really know -- I'm just driving it. I'm not privy to the insides of the motors as to what's really happening."

Ambrose's refueller Jimmy Watts was banned from involvement in the race after chasing a tyre that rolled away on to the grass between the pit lane and front straight during an early round of pitstops.

That sparked the race's first yellow-flag caution and sent many drivers a lap down and, after the few remaining leaders had pitted, forced them to resume on the tail end of the lead lap.

"I'm not sure what happened there -- I'll look at the tape," Ambrose said. "We don't want to ruin anybody's race -- especially NASCAR's.

"We want to play by the rules and do everything right. If we did something wrong then we need to look at it and not do it again."

The Atlanta race results are here and championship standings here.

They won both heats to beat the Super 2000 Toyota Corolla of their former team boss, four-time and reigning national champion Neal Bates and co-driver Coral Taylor.

Evans and Evans now lead the Australian Rally Championship after two rounds.

Evans' younger brother, Eli, crashed his Subaru Impreza WRX at 145kmh on Saturday in Kowen Forest.

"(Co-driver) Chris (Murphy) and I are not even sore and we reckon that with the Hans device and our wrap-around seats we were well protected." Evans said on Sunday while spectating.

ARC Pointscore after two of six rounds --  Simon Evans/Sue Evans (Mitsubishi, formerly Toyota) 151 points, Neal Bates/Coral Taylor (Toyota) 146, Glen Raymond/ Matt Raymond (Toyota) 104, Justin Dowel/Matt Lee (Mitsubishi) 86, Eli Evans/Chris Murphy (Subaru) 60, Brendan Reeves/Rhianon Smyth (Subaru) 45.

Doohan a director of Rally Australia
Five-time 500cc motorcycle world champion Mick Doohan has joined the board of directors of Rally Australia, the 10th round of the World Rally Championship in northern New South Wales on September 3-6.

"It's important for Australia to be part of world championship motorsport, so I'm keen to help any way I can with our WRC event," Doohan said.

The Rally Australia board is chaired by Garry Connelly, who is a company director involved in financial services and the IT industries.

Other board members are Alan Evans, director of the NRMA and Thrifty Car Rentals and president of the Australian Automobile Association, Geoff Jones, the CEO of Ticketek and a former boss of the Gold Coast Indy, Peter Marcovich, described as a supply manager, Mike Rayner, the general manager of the Tweed Shire through which the event will run as well as Kyogle Shire, and barrister Walter Sofronoff, QC.

Images: Patron Highcroft Racing