Brabham Still Has a Will, if Del Mar Provides a Way : Racing: Nissan driver tries to unseat Toyotas.

By MARTIN HENDERSON

Oct. 8, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

DEL MAR — Geoff Brabham has been through it all in 1992. He has won, he has lost, he has been injured. His luck has been mostly bad, but still he is third in the IMSA Camel Grand Touring Prototype driver’s standings.

The four-time defending GTP champion has had seasons like this before, yet on Aug. 9 at Road America, Brabham--who has been racing professionally for 22 years--felt something foreign in his psyche.

Helplessness.

His was the third car on the starting grid for Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. A crash kept Davy Jones’ Jaguar out of the starting lineup, leaving the Toyota Eagle MKIII’s of Juan Manuel Fangio II and P.J. Jones on the front row with nothing but daylight ahead of them and a frustrated Brabham in Row 2.

Brabham knew he was four seconds slower per lap than the two leaders, who finished 1-2 for a record third time, and he was two seconds faster than the driver next to him. There was nobody to race. He finished third, no better than he expected.

“I walked out to the car, looked around and said, ‘ What am I going to do for two hours?’ ” Brabham recalled. “I felt like stopping the car and apologizing to the crowd, saying, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m doing the best I can, but I just can’t race anybody.’

“I drove a lousy race. I ended up just cruising around. I didn’t drive the car as hard as it could go most of the time just because I knew it was futile to try to catch the two in front. It’s certainly nothing I was extremely proud of.”

Had Jones’ Jaguar started, casual race fans would not have looked to him to challenge the Toyotas. Jones, second in the point standings, would have at least made it a race.

“I would have still been in the same position,” Brabham said, “but at least I wouldn’t have been embarrassed to be out there.”

Ouch.

The Toyotas are still faster, but Brabham has something else going for him when he straps himself into the cockpit of the Nissan NPT-91D and begins practicing Friday for Sunday’s Vons Grand Prix of San Diego.

He has desire and the benefit of a 10-turn, 1.62-mile street course on the Del Mar Fairgrounds that doesn’t reward raw speed nearly as much as quickness and handling.

On each of his previous trips to Del Mar, Brabham usually has had the drivers’ championship on the line. He’s raced conservatively because he’s just had to finish. He’s never had to win, and he never has.

“For the first time in a very long time, I’m coming to Del Mar with no pressure of trying to win the championship,” he said. “I feel like I can just go out there and race hard--I haven’t always done that here. Quite often I’ve been in position to win races, but I’ve taken the (driver) championship No. 1.”

And he’s won four of those championships, as well as 26 of 82 Grand Prix starts (32%) since 1986. Those victories and that percentage lead all active regular GTP competitors.

Kas Kastner’s Nissan Performance Technology, Inc., team created the No. 83 Nissan car three years ago and it was a work of art. But technology caught up with Nissan--and surpassed it.

“Our car is actually faster than it was last year, but the Toyotas and Jaguars made a huge jump and that took us by surprise,” Brabham said. “We had some bad luck and then ultimately we ended up not being fast enough, and all taken together, it’s pretty tough to win.

“The Eagle today is the best car. They have some advantages. They’ve gotten the absolute maximum out of the situation and they’ve produced an extremely fast race car. Not only that, they’ve been finishing races and haven’t been making mistakes during the race. They’re in the position we were in two years ago, where we had the fastest car and we had the most reliable car and we didn’t take ourselves out of races.”

Toyota proved itself again Sunday in Phoenix. Fangio’s Toyota won. Teammate P.J. Jones was leading when he was rear-ended and taken out of the race, preventing Toyota from extending its record third 1-2 finish. Brabham, starting on the second row, finished third.

For the second consecutive year, Brabham suffered an injury that took a toll on him. Last year, it was during a test drive at Road America, and the crash broke four ribs, crushed two vertebrae and knocked out his front teeth. Seven weeks later, he had to race at Del Mar to clinch the championship.

A rear tire blew out near the end of a straightaway at Road Atlanta in late April that left him with a muscle strain in his neck, the severity of which wasn’t known until much later, when he could only do three laps while testing.

“It’s been my toughest year in a long time for a lot of different reasons,” Brabham said. “I’ve had some physical problems with the accident I had last year and the accident I had at Road Atlanta this year. I’ve had to really work that side of it a lot harder than I’ve ever done in the past just to get myself up to a point of being able to run the races.”

Yet he continues. And lest you get the wrong idea, the year hasn’t been a total wash. He won an IROC race and, for the first time, competed against both his brothers at Daytona. He led at Daytona when he lost an engine, and led at Sebring when a headlight malfunction cost him four laps--and the victory.

So, Brabham has had his moments, his opportunities, despite the Nissan’s age.

“We’ve won four years in a row and I think that probably sets you up for a bigger fall than if you just won one year and didn’t win the next,” Brabham said. “It’s hard to win every year. You just can’t do it. This year we came up a little short.”

That’s not a concession speech for this weekend, though. Hardly. If someone is to end Toyota’s string of six consecutive victories, it might well be Brabham on this layout. The Nissans are not suited to the frustrating fast track of Elkhart Lake with its long, fast, sweeping corners.

He’s won the IMSA race at Miami and finished second at New Orleans. The street course of Del Mar is right down his alley.

“Our car is a bit of a street fighter,” Brabham said. “If I had to pick a race track I’d go to where I thought I had the best chance of being competitive, I’d pick Del Mar.”

Brabham’s races have been meaningful at Del Mar, but he has never won. He took third last year and the circumstances seem right for a breakthrough.

“I’m just going to do the best I can,” Brabham said. “At least I don’t have to worry about championship points and who is where and not making any mistakes and making sure I get to the finish line. Those things are not going to be on me this year. Actually, I’m looking forward to it.”

This time, helplessness will have to wait.