Geoff Brabham gets the jump from Grace Bros Racing team-mate Andrew Miedecke, and Alfie Costanzo at the Hume Weir, Australian F2 Championship round on 15 June 1975…
Birrana 274 Ford Hart, Rennmax BN7 Ford Hart and Birrana 274 again- Costanzo won that day, but Geoff won the series.
In the black helmet at far right on the second row is Ray Winter in the Mildren ‘Yellow Submarine’ still a winner seven years after it first raced in Frank Gardner’s hands in the Summer of ’69 Tasman Series.
The high water mark of Australian National Formula 2 racing (1.6-litre, DOHC, two-valve- which effectively mandated the Lotus Ford twin-cam engine- the duck’s guts version was the Hart 416B circa 205bhp injected variants) was in 1974 when an infusion of sponsorship dollars from shirt manufacturer Van Heusen resulted in an influx of drivers stepping up to the class and/or acquiring new cars.
Guys like Leo Geoghegan, Enno Buesselmann, Bruce Allison, Ken Shirvington, John Leffler, Chas Talbot, Wolfgang Prejawa, with Sonny Rajah jetting in from Malaysia, and Graeme Lawrence did a round or two from NZ. In some cases, drivers stepped down from F5000: Bob Muir, John Walker, Kevin Bartlett and Max Stewart, to name a swag. For the sake of clarity, Leo was an established ace, having finally won the Gold Star, the national drivers’ championship he deserved in 1970. He retired and then did a Nellie Melba and returned to drive Malcolm Ramsay and Tony Alcock’s new Birrana 272 in mid-1972.
An absolute corker of a 1974 series was won by Leo in the ‘works’ Grace Bros sponsored Birrana 274 Ford-Hart in a closely fought battle with the Bob and Marj Brown owned Birrana 273 raced by Bob Muir and Leffler’s ‘tricky-dicky’, superb, variable rate suspension Bowin P8.
Predictably, in some ways, the Van Heusen money ended up supporting taxis in 1975 despite the great show put on by the F2s in 1974. All the same, the 1975 championship was a good one, given all the newish cars still about.
In late 1974 or early 1975, Costanzo bought Leo’s championship-winning car, and in that ’75 season, he gave his career the shot in the arm it needed after running around in an old Elfin 100 Mono F2 for way too long. I think Alfie did travel to Italy seeking a drive in the late 1960s, without success. Imagine if he had popped his bum into the right car back then, rather than a decade later at the end of the 1970s when Alan Hamilton’s Porsche Cars Australia finally gave him the drive he deserved in the ex-VDS/Brown Lola T430 Chev F5000 and subsequently the McLaren M26 Chev and Tiga Formula Pacifics into the early eighties.
Brabham and Miedecke stepped up from Formula Ford -a Bowin P6F and Birrana F73 respectively – retaining their Grace Bros support, which helped fund far more sophisticated and expensive cars than their FFs.
Geoff took the obvious choice in acquiring a Birrana 274-018, a low-mileage, late-build car from Neil Rear in Western Australia, whilst Andrew sought the ‘unfair advantage’ with a new Rennmax BN7 from Bob Brittan’s Sydney workshop.
In fact, it wasn’t that edgy a choice really, as his car was a refinement of Doug Heasman’s BN6, which hit the track about 12 months before, the speed of which was proven by Bob Muir in one or two races before he got the B & M Brown Birrana ride at Enno Buesselmann’s expense.
The BN7 design was different to the paradigm of the era in having a monocoque centre-cockpit section and spaceframes both front and rear. The more usual approach was an aluminium mono from the front ending in a bulkhead aft of the driver’s shoulders with an A-frame tubular structure at the rear to carry the engine and suspension.
Both the P8 Bowin and Rennmax were wedge-nosed designs with side radiators, whereas the Birranas and Elfins (works 622 as raced by Walker and 630) followed the ‘Tyrrell’ bluff-nosed approach with a front radiator.
In a year of strong competition between Brabham, Costanzo and Miedecke, Geoff took the title with three wins, at Amaroo, Symmons and Phillip Island, from Alfie with two wins, Hume Weir and Calder and Andrew, who won the first Calder round in May. Arguably, the quickest of the trio was Costanzo, but reliability was a little lacking on both his and Miedecke’s part.
With my new driver’s licence, I no longer had to rely on my reluctant Dad to cart me around to race meetings. I saw the Calder, Sandown and Phillip Island rounds that season and well recall a chat with Geoff and Peter Nightingale, his mechanic/engine builder, after the final ‘Island round in late November, which Brabs won in fine style.
He had his tail up in his modest way and was looking forward to taking on the world in Europe.
Interest was added to the series with lady racer Sue Ransom doing some events in Leffo’s Bowin P8 Ford/Hart. I pissed myself with laughter watching him pop her Willans six-pointer on at Calder, he was far more judicious with the crutch straps than he would have been with a fella.
In those days, the two lady-quicks were Ransom and Christine Cole/Gibson. I always thought it a shame Sue didn’t race the Bowin for longer than she did. Leffler himself did a round or two in Paul England’s Brabham BT36/Dolphin in amongst his Bowin P8 Chev F5000 commitments. The Brabham/Dolphin was also raced a couple of times by Tony Stewart, a talent lost.
Other drivers who added colour were Ken Shirvington, Chris Farrell, Enno Buesselmann, Doug MacArthur in the Lola T360 Bartlett and Lawrence had ‘guested in’ the year before when it was imported and owned by Glenn Abbey, with Ray Winter still pluggin’ away in The Yellow Sub, albeit substantially modified by Mawer Engineering.
The quicker of the 135bhp ANF3 cars (1-3 litre, SOHC or pushrod engines on carbs) could always give an average driven 205bhp F2 a run for its money, dudes like the two Brians- Shead and Sampson, Paul King, Peter Macrow and Dean Hosking to name several who extracted all these little cars had to give.
I’ve no idea who the ace felling a ‘pine plantation’ at Hume Weir is, I’m intrigued to know? Ditto the car.
What about the career trajectory of the 1975 F2 protagonists you ask?
Miedecke did another F2 year in the BN7 in 1976, Costanzo acquired a Lola T332 Chev F5000 and was immediately quick in it against the established 5-litre aces, whilst Brabham headed off to Europe for a couple of Ralt RT1 Toyota F3 seasons before launching his pro-career via his Ralt RT1 Super Vee performances in the US.
Etcetera…
Geoff Brabham Birrana 274 leads a group of cars up the Calder return to the paddock road, remember that setup? Peter Macrow’s Mk5 Cheetah and Paul King’s Birrana 374 behind. Geoff’s chassis, ex-Neil Rear, was 274-018. It was then bought by Ray Winter to replace the Sub, but if memory serves, he had a huge accident in it, Lakeside maybe? Now in the Holmes family collection.
Ray Winter in the Mildren Ford Hart ‘Yellow Submarine’ at Oran Park circa 1975
Photo Credits…
Mark Bishop, oldracephotos.com.au, Bruce Keys, Ray Bell on The Nostalgia Forum, Bob Williamson, Jay Bondini, Julie Amos
Tailpiece…
Graeme Crawford, Birrana 273 Ford F2, he won the national title in this car in 1976, from Brian Shead’s self-built Cheetah Mk5 Toyota F3, Hume Weir.
Finito…
primotipo... 