At first he drove a number of privately entered cars including a BMC Mini Cooper.

Progress was slow until 1973 without the support of family money in a sport which, at that time, did not permit sponsorship of individual cars.

In 1976, Brookes was invited to join the Ford 'works' team to drive an Escort RS1800 in the British Rally Championship.

Brookes found himself in formidable company not least from within the team, Björn Waldegård, Hannu Mikkola and Ari Vatanen (all world champions), being his team-mates.

Until shortly before his death, he was still making sporadic appearances in various cars on historic rallies and at motorsports events.