by H. G. Nelson
Jack dominated racing at the highest level from the 1955 through to his last hit out in anger in the 1970 Mexican Grand Prix. He was World Champion three times, in 1959, 1960 and 1966. In fact, in 1966, Jack Brabham was Australian of the Year, won the World Drivers’ Championship and Constructors’ Championship, and his name was on the biggest manufacturer of racing cars in the world. But how did he get there?
Many biographers have suggested Jack learnt to drive by applying for lessons he found advertised on the back of a Phantom comic. After just one lesson he gave it away as a complete waste of time. He got a start driving competitively in a midget, then hill climbing, and then progressed onto the dirt track speedway circuit. The dirt was a crowd puller.
Beginning at the Parramatta Speedway, he was soon stepping up to the big time at the Royale Speedway at the Sydney Showground in Moore Park, often racing several nights a week. The Royale attracted crowds of 40,000 and promoters would bring in international and interstate stars to get a ‘US versus Aussies’ vibe going at the box office. Jack did the early hard yards in dirt to avoid the alternative – an unwanted career as a green-grocer. Trucking fruit and vegetables was his other option but there was no future in that for a young man with a lead foot.
In 1955 Jack thrilled the world with his performance in the Australian Grand Prix at a tricky, purpose-built, motor-racing layout outside Port Wakefield. This was the twenty-sixth edition of the Aussie GP frolic and it brought that sleepy town lurking at the top of St Vincent’s Gulf in South Australia to life for an October long weekend in which the cars, humans, dust and burnt rubber danced an attractive salsa.
The Port Wakefield Thunderdome, built in 1953, was the first track laid in Australia after World War Two. The SA government had banned racing on the state’s public roads. The loss of life in off-track race carnage was bothering the elders of Adelaide. There were too many funerals clogging up the cathedrals in the City of Churches. Legislation confined car racing to specialised tracks and not roads used by the public.
There were too many funerals clogging up the cathedrals in the City of Churches.
The Thunderdome was opened by the Queen in 1954. People still talk about the day Elizabeth II lobbed into town with a big pair of Royal scissors looking for a ribbon to snip.
Her Majesty’s speech, now in the National Film and Sound Archive, gives an idea of how much fun the Royals can be when away from the bright light of official duty:
My Husband and I love motor sport. Whenever we can, the whole family gets a weekend away at Balmoral. We go fanging around the estate in a Land Rover HUE 166. The Scottish maintenance staff are brilliant. They have dropped a V8 into the front end of the 166. It goes like a Blue Streak rocket. We love giving the deer and the highland cattle a rear end Royal touch up. Prince Charles is a whizz on the bovine bumper bar bump.
Now I know it has taken many hours of hard work by the committee under the guidance of Thunderdome Chairman ‘Bongo’ Bruce Dongers to bring this magnificent facility to fruition.
I leave you with these words bellowed by my sister, Princess Margaret, from the back of the Royal Roller last month on her way to an all-nighter with The Rolling Stones, ‘Go you good thing!’
Speed on Australia! I now declare this magnificent racing complex open!
Now where is that gin and tonic and make mine a double! And once the committee clears the track, my husband and I will take a spin. Bye now!
The original Port layout was a boutique affair set out in the scrub a kilometre east of the Port CBD. It was a mere 2.09 kilometres long in an era when tracks were usually three and four times that length.
In its heyday this magnificent semi-desert circuit had it all. The field was flagged away in Repco Straight. This stretch ended with a right-hand kink before a sharp left into the challenging Tyresoles hair-pin turn. Then it was full bore sprint down to Kallin Corner. This grim right-hander required power and skill to keep the car on the road. Once that shambles was tucked away in the rear-vision mirror, it was a flat-out burn down the 600 metres of Thompson Motors Straight. Turn five was the magnificent Dunlop Corner, then the last turn at Stonyfell. This was a tricky grief-maker that brought the start/finish line into sight. It required timing when hitting the skids and pouring on the power once the car was freed from the corner’s grip. This was where the crowd liked to gather, knowing there would be incredible shunt action.
The stars of the age, like Brabham, Rex Hunt and Doug White, could knock the shebang over in a couple of ticks over a minute. The crowd just got used to the field being gone when suddenly it was back. Talk about trackside excitement!
At one stage the very go-ahead planning committee suggested putting in a turning roundabout at Stonyfell. This brilliant design concept would allow cars to race in both directions on the same roadway. The Port Wakefield facility would have a point of difference from every track in the world.
But as so often in motor sport, the local racing authority, the South Australian government and the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport were clueless when it came to creating a genuine spectacle that would encourage the South Australian public to drive from Adelaide for a unique motor racing experience.
In 1955, after eighty exciting laps of the circuit, Jack brought car six, the Cooper T40 Bristol, home in 1 hour 26 minutes and 44.43 seconds.
The podium finish had Jack on the top step, Reg Hunt lobbed into the silver slot, and Doug White left covered in the disappointment of bronze.
But many international commentators believe that Jack’s Port Wakefield Grand Prix drive was his best in a stunning career chock-a-block full of gems.
But many international commentators believe that Jack’s Port Wakefield Grand Prix drive was his best in a stunning career chock-a-block full of gems. Two thousand pounds were up for grabs on the Labour Day long weekend. It was a big purse. In today’s money about $15.7 million.
This was the weekend when Jack, who was always on the tooth before, during and after a drive, pioneered the art of using the heat generated by the high-revving Cooper Bristol power pack to cook meat.
After a few experiments during qualifying, he wrapped half-a-dozen crumbed lamb cutlets and four Pontiac potatoes in Alfoil and placed them on the hottest section of the engine block.
Whenever he pitted for petrol, a tyre change or just because he was bored, the pit crew, after doing the regular checks, rotated his lunch on the engine block to ensure an even heat cooked the meat on what became known as the Brabham hotplate.
Jack timed his run home to perfection, so the lamb cutlets and potatoes were ready to plate with seasonal greens as soon as he pulled into the pits after his victory lap.
There was no great science in the Brabham approach to ‘V8’ cuisine. He realised after a few experimental engine block bakes that he could cook anything under the bonnet of the Bristol.
Jack never kept accurate records of his F1 oven work but, talking to very satisfied older hands to establish the breadth of his mobile bake, it appears the Cooper Climax maestro cooked on every track he drove at during his long career.
There is photographic evidence that in Grand Prix years he smoked sausages, did legs of lamb, rolled pork roasts with apple sauce and even pulled passionfruit-iced sponge cakes and apple crumble out of the four on the floor motoring microwave. He usually cooked what was locally available, whether it was Coffin Bay scallops, freshly shot kangaroo tail from Wilpena Pound, emu rump from Broken Hill or Mallacoota crayfish.
At pre-race press conferences Jack was often pestered not with questions about the car and its performance capabilities but with cuisine stumpers tossed up by journalists and feature writers from housekeeping magazines.
He sought out condiments like salt bush and wild rosemary from the nearby scrub to season the bake.
At pre-race press conferences Jack was often pestered not with questions about the car and its performance capabilities but with cuisine stumpers tossed up by journalists and feature writers from housekeeping
magazines like Women’s Weekly and Woman’s Day and kitchen stars of the era like Margaret Fulton and Charmaine Solomon. Everyone wanted tips that ordinary Australians could apply on their daily commute or weekend away in the FC Holden or Ford Futura ute.
Racing fans were always delighted when Jack turned up as they knew a few lucky ones would get a feed. Schoolkids whenever they got a glimpse of Jack would sing out, ‘Hey Jack, what have you got cooking? How about cooking something up for me?’ And the big man never disappointed; he always had a droll, funny reply.
His cookbook, Donk Finger: The Engine Heat and Red Meat Revolution, sold 375,000 copies. It was voted Self-Help Book of the Year in 1965. It revolutionised the car-cooking concept across Australia. The central thesis of Donk Finger is that there is an art to matching meat and motors.
The producers of MasterChef are working on a motor meat special series for 2023. Thirteen episodes, where all cooking is done under the bonnet of a Holden car. It is part travelogue, part mechanical instruction, but mainly it is all meat and heat.
Recently, with greater environmental concern, there has been a massive revival of interest in the Donk Finger concept. Motorists are rightly concerned about not wasting the heat the car motor generates. There are now several online car cooking courses available and podcasts tackling the history and techniques of the craze.
After Jack’s tradition-shattering drive in 1955, there was a spirited application to run the 1961 Grand Prix back at the headquarters of South Australian motor sport, but national authorities stepped in and claimed the venue was totally inadequate.
The main danger at Port was race cars colliding with box thorn bushes and other floral debris uprooted in nearby paddocks and hurled onto the track by the stiff, hot, northerly breeze.
However, the safety committee swerved past the mobile obstacles and highlighted a lack of women’s toilets and no handrails in the non-existent stands as the main complaints for taking the big one away from this petite circuit. The authorities in head office then decided to relocate the whole shebang to a new track at Mallala. This layout was much closer to the Athens of the South, but the magic stayed behind in Port Wakefield.
Today this central piece of Australian automotive history has fallen into disrepair. The circuit is waiting to be rediscovered by a new generation of speed freaks, much in the manner that the rediscovery in 2020 of the Don Bradman concrete pitch in Bowral has reignited an interest in the original Don and everything he achieved in the baggy green.
Sadly, after 1961, when the circuit was mothballed, it quickly faded back into the scrub and salt bush, taking all that Grand Prix glamour and romance with it.
In 2005, to commemorate the great drives at Port, Jack recorded a podcast with Modern Motor’s Lester ‘Flathead’ Stim. Jack reminisced over twelve episodes about the Thunderdome days of motor racing and the conception of Donk Finger cooking at Port Wakefield.
There were many more winning drives ahead for Jack: 1955 was just the beginning. There was the knighthood and an OBE to collect. Perth, WA, went silly and named a whole suburb after him. The suburb had no speed limits in homage to the great man. In the end, Jack kept driving competitively until his late seventies, remarking to Carla Zampatti at the launch of the Ford Laser, ‘Carla, driving is the only thing that prevents me from getting old!’
Part 3
LEGACY
HORSE RACING
As the top jockey said, ‘If I win by a centimetre or lose by a centimetre, punters will have no idea if I am trying!’
LET’S BEGIN AT THE end of time – that is, now. It is a very big end. It is The Everest. This fifteen-million-dollar sprint is the ultimate test of horse, chemistry and human. It is the big pinnacle in world racing, hence the name. It is the richest equine contest on this or any other planet. This is the highest vantage point from which to survey the long landscape and troubled terrain of Australian racing. It is an end that deserves a chapter because it tells the nation a lot about where it is heading, on and off the track.
Horse racing began in Australia around the end of the 1700s. The whips were cracking within hours of Europeans dropping anchor in Port Jackson. The new chums agreed in unison: ‘What this joint really needs, to be taken seriously as a nation, is the repetitive rumble of galloping hooves, an eight-race card in town on Saturday with a rural and regional Cup every other Sunday!’
The joint came alive once a Cup field was assembled at the 1600-metre pole. It blossomed once the bookies started shouting the odds in the stands and shifty-looking colourful racing identities were spotted tipping the cobalt-flavoured go-fast into the favourite’s chaff bucket.
In 1790 there were no champion thoroughbred horses skulking around in the colony’s stables. There were no stables as the racing industry understands them today. All the available horse flesh was gainfully employed working, pulling ploughs, dragging coaches and delivering mail. But on weekends these hayburners were good enough to race. Even in the most modest field there is always a winner.
The European blow-ins fresh off the boat soon formed clubs, raised funds and marked out a course with the witches’ hats of their era. With their efforts the racing industry was up and running.
Thoroughbreds did not turn up in the block of land girt by sea until the early 1800s. With the well-bred horses appearing on the tracks, trainers, jockeys, socialites in hats, the fashion-on-the-field types, busted-arse punters and the well-upholstered bookies all followed. Suddenly everything was tickety-boo. Racing became a thing.
The crowds came because there was bugger-all else to do in the early days of the invasion. The crowds looked at the horses in the mounting enclosure, made informed assessments, got set with the bookies, watched the race and took their place in the payout queue. In between races they could pick up a pie and a beer and watch the fashions on the field.
The crowds came because there was bugger-all else to do in the early days of the invasion.
Racing was a civilised, cultural, well-organised, well-attended and well-dressed pursuit. The rules of racing did not prevent racegoers from getting on the turps and taking a swing at anyone who wanted to go on with it. The bouts quickly moved to the car park (or where the Members’ car park would eventually be), where there was plenty of room to go on with it. But the punching punters were soon told to ‘take it off course’. A precaution so that this great sport was not tarnished by the stupidity of patrons.
The heart of Australian racing from the 1860s was Melbourne. Every spring a month-long carnival of the conveyance clustered around a number of gruelling energy-sapping distance races. These staying tests sorted out the great champions of the age.
The carnival began with the Caulfield Cup, run, unsurprisingly, at Caulfield, over 1.5 miles (now 2400 metres). It was first run in 1879 for very modest prize money. Today they run around the same track and distance for five million dollars. The next cab off the spring carnival rank was the WS Cox Plate, run at Moonee Valley over 2040 metres. This weight-for-age affair, first run in 1922, is considered by purists to be the race of the carnival. The Victoria Derby, first run at Flemington in 1855 also over 1.5 miles (now rounded up to 2500 metres), for three-year-olds under set-weight conditions, is now worth a few million. The Derby is the big race on a day of group one features, arguably the greatest day of racing on the Australian turf calendar. The Melbourne Cup was first run in 1861 at the height of the Victorian gold boom when ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ was loaded. This handicap for all comers is now worth an ice-cold eight million.
From the jump, racing has featured colourfully clad jockeys on top of four galloping hooves roaring around the track, looking for a rails run or scouting wide for the better going. Most Australians have a fair idea of the caper even if they are not the slightest bit interested in the sport.
These distant staying races appealed to old-school punters who graced Australia’s tracks and horse thinking for decades. The Victoria Racing Club, which held the spring carnival reins for decades, is not an organis
ation interested in change. They liked what happened last year and like even more what will happen this year.
They ran the show for horses, connections and personalities. They promoted Melbourne as a destination for big punters who waded into the betting ring and snatched up value before bookies could wind the price down. Back in the day, it was old-school betting with real money, as in notes. On-course punters often pulled serious money out of the hip pocket of a well-cut double-breasted suit.
One only has to think of the late Channel Nine boss Kerry Packer, ‘Late Mail’ Dale Ouest, Frank Duval (aka ‘The Hong Kong Tiger’), Perce Galea (aka ‘The Prince of Punters’), The Fish Creek Fireball (aka ‘Terrified Chia Chant’), Hollywood George Edser, Truxton Anasta (aka ‘The Muswellbrook Meteor’) and the ‘Pride of Parramatta Road’, ‘Fast’ Eddie Hayson. This was the lucky country. It was the envy of the world.
These older punters provided a familiar certainty about the pattern of events, and the whole process ran along neatly and soberly for years.
These older punters provided a familiar certainty about the pattern of events, and the whole process ran along neatly and soberly for years. Sure the wheeze swerved around the potholes in the road of progress, the stars changed, the horses came and went, as horses do, the jockeys clung on and fell off. But who could imagine real, lasting, significant change?
The Melbourne Cup was always run over 3200 metres. Two miles of memories, drama, courage, heroics, disappointments. Fortunes were spent getting a horse to the starting line. There were big wins and even bigger losses. Since 1860 generations of Australians have filed away memories of great horses, incredible jockeys, dramatic finishes, terrible falls and dud horses that are still running. Most right-thinking Australians can list favourites in every category.
