Sir Jack Brabham - in his own words with Peter Windsor

Well, I started off midget car racing on cinder tracks in Australia, which is the sort of racing that's done a lot in America and Australia.

was towards the end of 1947 what we call the 47-48 season out there because the season used to start about September and go till about April and that was really my start and I had about six years of cinder track driving before I ventured out into road racing.

I was invited to a hill climb at the Hawkesville climb near Sydney just to demonstrate a midget car on the hill climb with the Light Car Club of Australia.

And I think I took about five or six seconds or more off their hill record.

And at the time, they didn't expect this, of course, and they thought, God, we can't have this.

So I was disqualified, actually, because the car only had two-wheel brakes, which is all we used to use.

on the speedway so then of course this got my back up and I thought right well if that's the case I'll go and put four wheel brakes on it so I went home and fitted four wheel brakes to the car and went down to Rob Roy in 1951 and entered the Australian Hill Climb Championship and of course won that with the car which then sort of got me interested in road racing cars and I moved on from then and bought a Mark 4 Cooper which I also used a little bit in hill climbs, but mainly started then on circuit racing, which was really the beginning of my road racing career.

which would have been 1952.

Probably after driving so many years on cinder tracks, hanging the tail out was really the only way to get round a cinder circuit.

And of course, having the tail hanging out was really my style of driving.

That's the way I thought it should be done.

But of course, I soon learned in Europe that the type of road racing more sophisticated cars that were driving that this wasn't the way to do it.

My first event was at Goodwood on Easter Monday 1955 and probably I made my first big mistake in motor racing really coming to England by not bringing the Cooper Bristol car that I had in Australia at the time.

because I was influenced by other people that it would be far better to sell the car in Australia and buy a better one in England and I found this was very difficult and finished up with a car of course that was inferior to the one I had in Australia purely because any car that was really good in this country obviously wasn't for sale.

Probably the most exciting race I had was in 1959 when I won the Monaco Grand Prix and being my first Grand Prix win, naturally this stuck in my mind for a long time and was really a sense of achievement that every young driver really had an ambition for.

From a whole career achievement, the fact of winning the first Grand Prix in a Brabham car at Reims at that time was probably the most satisfying race I think I've ever had.

A sense of achievement, the fact that we've constructed a car and win the world championship with it.

Even more satisfying from my point of view because I'd been to Australia and convinced Repco that it was possible to build an engine and go and win Grand Prix racing, which I think was really backed in a very very fine way they really put their back into it and had the engine built in very very quick time which was the secret of the success of the thing because we did actually get onto the circuit with a three liter engine with very very good torque although I didn't have a lot of maximum power and very reliable at the right time and we won two world championships straight off with that with myself winning in 66 and Dennis Holman 67.

Well, I started off midget car racing on cinder tracks in Australia, which is the sort of racing that's done a lot in America and Australia.

was towards the end of 1947 what we call the 47-48 season out there because the season used to start about September and go till about April and that was really my start and I had about six years of cinder track driving before I ventured out into road racing.

I was invited to a hill climb at the Hawkesville climb near Sydney just to demonstrate a midget car on the hill climb with the Light Car Club of Australia.

And I think I took about five or six seconds or more off their hill record.

And at the time, they didn't expect this, of course, and they thought, God, we can't have this.

So I was disqualified, actually, because the car only had two-wheel brakes, which is all we used to use.

on the speedway so then of course this got my back up and I thought right well if that's the case I'll go and put four wheel brakes on it so I went home and fitted four wheel brakes to the car and went down to Rob Roy in 1951 and entered the Australian Hill Climb Championship and of course won that with the car which then sort of got me interested in road racing cars and I moved on from then and bought a Mark 4 Cooper which I also used a little bit in hill climbs, but mainly started then on circuit racing, which was really the beginning of my road racing career.

which would have been 1952.

Probably after driving so many years on cinder tracks, hanging the tail out was really the only way to get round a cinder circuit.

And of course, having the tail hanging out was really my style of driving.

That's the way I thought it should be done.

But of course, I soon learned in Europe that the type of road racing more sophisticated cars that were driving that this wasn't the way to do it.

My first event was at Goodwood on Easter Monday 1955 and probably I made my first big mistake in motor racing really coming to England by not bringing the Cooper Bristol car that I had in Australia at the time.

because I was influenced by other people that it would be far better to sell the car in Australia and buy a better one in England and I found this was very difficult and finished up with a car of course that was inferior to the one I had in Australia purely because any car that was really good in this country obviously wasn't for sale.

Probably the most exciting race I had was in 1959 when I won the Monaco Grand Prix and being my first Grand Prix win, naturally this stuck in my mind for a long time and was really a sense of achievement that every young driver really had an ambition for.

From a whole career achievement, the fact of winning the first Grand Prix in a Brabham car at Reims at that time was probably the most satisfying race I think I've ever had.

A sense of achievement, the fact that we've constructed a car and win the world championship with it.

Even more satisfying from my point of view because I'd been to Australia and convinced Repco that it was possible to build an engine and go and win Grand Prix racing, which I think was really backed in a very very fine way they really put their back into it and had the engine built in very very quick time which was the secret of the success of the thing because we did actually get onto the circuit with a three liter engine with very very good torque although I didn't have a lot of maximum power and very reliable at the right time and we won two world championships straight off with that with myself winning in 66 and Dennis Holman 67.