Jim McGee and Ray Evernham with the Brawner Hawk at Amelia Island. [Eddie LePine Photo]
By Eddie LePine
I made my annual trip to the Amelia Island Concours d’ Elegance in March to take in the incredible sights and see some of the finest cars on the planet on display at Bill Warner’s superb event.
One of the cars I really wanted to see this year was the Brawner Hawk, which was going to be displayed after undergoing an extensive restoration. Owner Ray Evernham chose Amelia Island for the unveiling of this outstanding and very legendary car.
Jim McGee at Amelia Island with his new book. [Eddie LePine Photo]
Also on hand was another legend, Jim McGee. McGee was in charge of the restoration of the Brawner Hawk and was at the event signing copies of the outstanding new book about his racing career by Gordon Kirby: “Jim McGee – Crew Chief of Champions” and I took the opportunity to sit down with him to discuss the Brawner Hawk restoration project.
Now, Jim McGee is without doubt one of the most successful crew chiefs in racing history, with 90 USAC and CART race wins, 9 championships and 4 Indy 500 wins to his credit. In that storied career, the Brawner Hawk stands out to him as a very special car.
Jim takes up the story: “I’ve known Ray Evernham for a long time. We worked at Penske Racing, I worked on the Indy Cars and he worked on the IROC cars before he went down south and hooked up with Hendricks and Jeff Gordon.”
“He called me about this chassis that a gentleman up in New York had, claiming it to be the original Hawk that we built in 1964 and asked me if I could authenticate it – which I did. And it was the original chassis. Then he asked me if I would have any interest in putting it together. At first I kind of hesitated and then thought the car was so instrumental in Mario’s (Andretti) and my career, that I didn’t want anybody else doing it, so we made an arrangement.”
The rebuilt Brawner Hawk on the field at Amelia Island. [Eddie LePine Photo]
Jim continued: “It wasn’t a restoration, it was a rebuild. Ironically we built that car, the original chassis, in ’64 and as we updated that car – we ran that same car for three years, we ran it in ’65, ’66 and ’67. And as we updated it we would take the parts we would change and replace them with newer and more efficient and faster stuff. Clint Brawner never threw away anything. So, any parts we would take off the car he would put in his house, which was next door to where our garage was and when Clint died he left all of his Indy Car, all his car stuff, to his nephew – Tommy Brawner and Tommy built a replica car out of the stuff that was lying in the house. So, Ray (Evernham) then went out and we were looking for parts and they were so hard to find. Ray found that replica car and asked me what I thought and I said that that he should buy that car regardless of cost, so he bought it and as we were rebuilding the original chassis, we were using the parts off this replica car and all of a sudden I noticed that everything from this replica car was from the original ’64 Hawk! So we ended up with the whole, complete original car – because all of the original parts that were on this replica car.”
“It was a real funny story and a great story, and when I told Ray, hey, that’s the original uprights, that’s the original body work, that’s the original oil tank, that’s the original steering gear, dashboard and all this stuff – he couldn’t believe it. So, really, he has the original car.”
“The car has so much history. It was the first rear-engined car to win a road race in Indy Car racing. It won 26 of 27 races. It was first in so many categories; it had such a great history of winning championships and launching Mario’s career. It is a very important part of Indy Car history.”
Mario Andretti will be reunited with the Brawner Hawk this May at the 100th running of the Indy 500, where he will drive the car around the track.
Jim continues his story: “As it happened years later, I think it was 1968 and Mario wanted a Lotus and Firestone bought one for us and we did all the prep work. It was at Indianapolis and Mario jumped into the Lotus just to get a feel for it. He ran about 20 laps, then he came in and he said: sell this thing. He said there was such a difference in the cars.”
“We didn’t understand until years later, since we had to put these big flat tanks outside and run these oil tubes down the side, which kind of formed a skirt, creating downforce under the car. So we were probably running 1500 pounds of downforce. We noticed that we couldn’t hold the car up with the kind of springs you would normally be running on a rear-engined car. We had to put huge springs and bump rubbers because the car was sucking down all the time. He wasn’t the fastest car on the straights, but in the corners it stuck.”
Of course, years later, Lotus and Colin Chapman were given credit for inventing ground effects on race cars and ground effects were instrumental to the success of the Lotus 79 that carried Mario Andretti to the World Championship in Formula One in 1978.
That Brawner Hawk paved the way for the modern development of aerodynamics and ground effects, by its very design. Had Jim McGee and his crew had computers and wind tunnels back in the 1960s who knows what else they would have come up with?
It was a pleasure to see the Brawner Hawk at Amelia Island, but even more of a pleasure to sit down with a true hero and legend of motorsport, Jim McGee, to discuss the history and the story behind of the car’s rebirth.
Two legends in one trip. Not bad.