Monterey 2017 – Part 2

Words by Keith Bluemel

On the Thursday of Monterey Car Week, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion gets under way at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, with practice and qualifying runs for the weekend race programme, and this is where the week starts to get really intense in terms of where to be. Apart from the race track activity, which runs from Thursday through to Sunday, there is the gathering at Quail Lodge on the Friday, Concorso Italiano on the Saturday and the finale to the weeks activities, the Pebble beach Concours d’Elegance on the Sunday, together with auctions happening left, right and centre!

The race programme at Laguna Seca had a packed programme, comprising of 16 races on the Saturday and 14 races on the Sunday, spanning everything from Pre-1940 Sports Racing and Touring Cars to 1981-1991 IMSA GTP cars, featuring the likes of the legendary Porsche 962s, with an eclectic mix in between. One of the highlights of the meeting were demonstration laps by the 1998 & 1999 F1 World Champion Mika Hakkinen, driving a 1974 McLaren M23 F1 car, as used by Emerson Fittipaldi to win that year’s World Championship.

Amongst the wide array of exciting race machinery competing was an original Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, a Ferrari 312 P(B) with its screaming 3 litre Flat 12 power plant, a pair of Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 models, and it seemed like almost every classic Porsche one could imagine. A further bonus for Ferrari fans was the Michelin display in the paddock, which featured a trio of modern Ferrari GT race cars from Risi Competizione, a 360 GT, a 430 GT and a 458 GT, whilst the Racing Through the Decades Display in the paddock featured the Ferrari 500 TRC, in which Pete Lovely won the first race held at Laguna Seca 60 years ago, when the track opened in 1957.

All Photos by Keith Bluemel