REAR VIEW: Brabham's narrow escape at Indy

When: May 30, 1964
Where: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
What: Indy 500
Who: Jack Brabham

Jack Brabham never finished higher than ninth at the Indianapolis 500, although the legacy of his first appearance in 1961 with his rear-engined Cooper is still felt to this day.

But while the three-time F1 world champion was one of several grand prix stars to tackle the Brickyard during the 1960s (along with Jim Clark, PICTURED), the risk versus reward ratio of racing at Indy never sat easily with him. And as far as Brabham was concerned, his discomfort with the place was fully vindicated when he nearly became caught up in the horrific accident that killed Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald in 1964.

Brabham, who died in 2014 at the age of 88, shared his thoughts on racing at Indy with this writer during an interview that took place on the 40th anniversary of his third world title 10 years ago.

"I didn't enjoy the racing at Indianapolis. It was just one of those things that you had to go and do. You had sponsors that wanted to be there. Like Goodyear – we were on Goodyear tires, and they wanted to be there. So it was those sorts of factors behind it, really. I didn't race there because I enjoyed it.

"In my book, it was too dangerous. It was like racing in a canal – you could have an accident with somebody that was not your own fault. Getting mixed up in other people's accidents was not the sort of thing to do. It was only sheer luck that I got away with it in 1964 – there were two people killed right in front of me, and I was so close to getting mixed up in the middle of all of that. Unbelievable."

ED: MacDonald was driving the Sears-Allstate Special (PICTURED), which suffered from notoriously bad handling due to its poor aerodynamic profile. Masten Gregory was scheduled to race the No.82 entry but quit the team following a crash in practice; MacDonald raced the sister No.83 car.

"Masten Gregory warned me about that car. He said it was terrible. He said the car just frightened him. And I didn't think anything could frighten him.

"When the race started, I wasn't looking at anything except that car. It was only two rows in front of me. And all I did was just watch that motor car, because I knew before the race started that there was going to be an accident. And as soon as I saw that car go out of shape, boy, I had those brakes on like you wouldn't believe. I just got slowed enough to be able to turn and go through the fire at a right-angle. I only had to go a little bit further and I would have been right in the crash with the other two cars."