He followed this with second place at Milwaukee in August and second again at Phoenix in November - again from pole - to secure USAC's national championship.ĭean had a Lotus 38 on order for 1966 but before this was delivered, Andretti continued his run of form in the Hawk, taking pole position at Phoenix and Trenton at the start of the season. After finishing fourth at Milwaukee, he took pole position at Langhorne and finished second, and then took his first win at Indianapolis Raceway Park in June, where he again started from pole. The new car made its debut at the 1965 Indy 500, where Andretti qualified fourth and finished third, winning the Rookie of the Year award. Brawner initially called his car a Brabham, for example in his Motor Trend article in March 1966, but used the name Hawk in 1966 and then Brawner-Hawk in 1967. Bodywork was fabricated by Eddie Kuzma, engines supplied by Ford, and the car was prepared by Brawner and his 27-year-old assistant Jim McGee. The frames were all made by Brawner at his workshop in Phoenix, AZ, using TIG-welded SAE 4130 chrome-moly steel, instead of the braze-welded mild steel used in the Brabham frame.

Brawner's deal allowed him to build a second replica for the Dean Van Lines team, to be raced by team driver Mario Andretti in 1965. A series of accidents in September and October rendered the car unusable so Zink commissioned Clint Brawner, the chief mechanic on Al Dean's highly successful team, to build a replica of the BT.

It was then raced by Jim McElreath for Zink for the rest of 1964 and stronger springs transformed it into a race winner. The original Brabham BT12 had been ordered by John Zink for 1964 and had been raced by Jack Brabham at the 1964 Indy 500, where it was let down by its F1 springs, which were much too light for the Speedway. The following season he used this car to take pole position at the Indy 500 and then a second successive USAC title. Used with permission.īuilt as a copy of the Brabham BT12, the original 1965 Brawner Hawk took Mario Andretti to the 1965 USAC Championship. Ray Evernham's restored 1965 Brawner-Hawk at the Historic Indycar Exhibition in May 2016.

Download brawner hawk indycar