SIR JACK BRABHAM

Written Peter White.

• AUSTRALIAN CHAMPION 1949 (SYDNEY SHOWGROUND), 1949 (KILBURN, ADELAIDE), 1950, 1953
• NEW SOUTH WALES CHAMPION 1948

BORN APRIL 2, 1926 / DIED MAY 19, 2014

Technically, Jack Brabham became famous in road racing and it was his prowess on the asphalt that earned him his knighthood.

But before that he was a big star in speedway - a several times Australian champion who had literally achieved everything before leaving the dirt tracks.

Photo: Johnny Schonberg in #28 when it was

new and before it was sign written.

An American, Johnny Schonberg, who had settled in Australia after being discharged from the USA Army and combined business with midget racing in Sydney, introduced Brabham to speedway in the 1940s. During an overnight stop in Brisbane, on their way from Sydney to Darwin for a disposal sale, Schonberg noticed in the local paper that the races had been washed out on the Saturday night and were to be held on the Monday. Schonberg introduced Brabham to some of the drivers as they looked over their cars and after seeing the racing first-hand, Brabham was impressed ... but convinced they were all lunatics.

Back in Sydney, Brabham watched Schonberg race a few times before they decided to build a car together with the help of Ron Ward and Bill Armstrong. After four or five months they had constructed their first midget with a tubular chassis fitted with a Morris Cowley gearbox cut in half to provide two gears, a Harley-Davidson clutch, Amilcar hubs and a troublesome 1000cc JAP engine.

Motorcycle ace Art Senior helped bore the engine out to 1100cc for the 1946-7 season but they eventually decided the power plant wasn’t up to the task and Brabham built a 1350cc engine. When Schonberg’s wife convinced him to stop racing in the winter of 1948 it left him with a car but no driver. Enter his friend Jack Brabham.

Following some pointers on driving by Schonberg at the Tempe mud flats, Brabham entered some Wednesday night meetings at Parramatta Speedway (Cumberland Oval). Being a novice he had to start at the rear of the fields and by his third meeting he won the feature from the back of the 12-car line-up.

The big-time of the Sydney Showground beckoned and Brabham entered three races and won them all. Empire Speedway latched onto the story, giving Brabham a lot of press attention.

Racing three times a week - at Parramatta on Wednesdays, the Sydney Sports Ground on Fridays and the Sydney Showground on Saturdays - Brabham could earn up to £50-75 when the weekly average wage was only £6-10. One year he beat Ray Revell to the track championship by one point and won a very nice gold watch. He also raced regularly in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Jack Brabham receives the trophy after  winning the 1948-1949 Australian Midget Title at Kilburn Speedway.

He won the ‘Australian Championship’ four times - in 1949 at the Sydney Showground and at Kilburn in South Australia, in 1950 at Rowley Park and in 1953 at Cumberland Oval, Parramatta.

Brabham had a knack for speedway racing and during six seasons never turned the car over.

After all the building and engineering he had done, Jack realised he had achieved everything worthwhile in speedway and it was time to move on.

He’d already entered the midget in a few Hill Climbs and won the 1951 Australian Championship which sparked his interest in tackling serious road racing. To finance his road racing ambitions, Brabham sold his Speedcar to Len Golding in Adelaide. However he continued racing speedway midgets for a few more years, driving for Spike Jennings in a car with a Harley-Davidson V-twin cylinder engine built by Ted Dark.

Jack Brabham gets a ‘spray’ from Ray Revell at the Sydney Showground.

Brabham finally bade speedway farewell when he purchased his first road racing car, a Cooper HRD, which was followed by the REDeX Cooper Bristol in which he really made his mark.

Jack, of course, went on to become the Formula One World Drivers Champion in 1959, 1960 and 1966, contesting 126 Grands Prix from 1955 to 1970 with an amazing total of 14 wins. He is the only driver in Formula One history to win the championship in a car of his own construction.

Jack Brabham at Cumberland Speedway.

He was Australian of the Year in 1966, awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1967, knighted for his services to motor sport in 1979 and inducted into the Speedway Hall of Fame in 2011.

Written by Peter White for 100 Legends Of The Aussie Speedways – October, 2012.

Top photo: Three-time World F1 champ Jack Brabham at Cumberland Oval in the late '40. Photo: Byron Gunther.