Pre-Historic Meet: The Reunion Before the Reunion at Laguna Seca
At the end of every summer, there is an epic event called the Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Despite the deceptively ambiguous name, this is the west coast’s most prestigious vintage racing event. However, this event doesn’t just happen; it takes over a week of setting up and in fact, they actually pre-run the event the week earlier.
At this event, colloquially called “Pre-Historics”, I would estimate (and these are purely guesses) that the car participation is perhaps 75% yet spectator participation is a scant 1% of what it is on the real Reunion weekend.
Slow Roller
I’m all about the slow pan; of all the photography techniques that’s probably my favorite. Normally, one of the challenges of hand-held photography is to keep the camera perfectly still, but with panning shots you’re shooting an object in motion with a camera in motion. Fascinating.
This was taken in the middle of a low-speed parking maneuver, but the 1/15 shutter speed really exaggerates it. When Brendan posted it up on Instagram, he got a bunch of comments like, “Sweet parking lot hoonage”. Job done, then.
The most annoying thing when I’m trying to take a panning shot is when people see me and slow down. Keep going! On the other hand, these guys in the 912E saw me and went flat-out. The car squatted, made a lot of noise, but with a whopping 80hp it didn’t really go anywhere. But I still got the shot.
Car Week Begins: Canepa C&C August 2016
Every year, there’s a cluster of events in Northern California collectively known as “Car Week”. This encompasses two major events—the Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca, which is the USA’s premier vintage motorsport gathering, and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, which is the world’s premier classic car show—as well as the week of exotic car-related events leading up to it.
Well, not a day goes by when I’m not focused on some aspect of the car world, so for me this isn’t really much of a change of pace; more like a slight acceleration. But it just so happened that the August 2016 edition of the Canepa Design Cars & Coffee, which happens the second Saturday of every month, landed right at the beginning of Car Week, so I’m counting it as part of the festivities.
Historic Season Kicks Off
We’re going for a bit of a time warp here, because although we’re now in the month of August, I’d like to briefly take you back to the beginning of summer with the Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival at Sonoma Raceway, hosted by SVRA (Sportscar Vintage Racing Association).
I don’t think this late coverage is a big deal because, well, the cars are already old. Vintage racing isn’t about winning, losing, or the new hotness–it’s about classic elegance.
And by classics, I mean really classic. It’s so awesome to see pre-war cars battling it out.
I could have brought my big telephoto and monopod, but on this day I didn’t feel like carrying around anything more than my little 50mm. That gave me the opportunity and motivation to experiment; I shot this 908 with a 1/10 second shutter.
It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s pretty exhausting on your back and legs to carry around four pounds of glass, plastic, and carbon fiber when you’re walking a few miles and constantly kneeling and standing. Or maybe I’m just weak!
Well, whatever. It’s nice to walk around, light and free, unencumbered by the weight of extra gear.
Nice little pair in this classic Penske livery.
I always say, anything with “Special” in the name is automatically badass. And anything with eight velocity stacks and eight header runners sticking up through the hood is probably badass too!
This is a Porsche 910, which I love. In my imagination the 906 is the most appealing, because it was the last road-legal Porsche race car. But the 910 was a shorter and lighter evolution of the 906, and they’re even rarer (29 910’s made, as opposed to 50 906’s).
What an amazing cockpit. So simple and to the point.
Is it just me or do you not see many Chevelles at these events? The ’64-72 models are some of my favorite cars ever, and the ’73 is pretty neat too (Drive status). I wonder if Chevy has any plans to revive the Chevelle nameplate?
This is a 1916 Sturtevant, which is insanely rare. I’m having a hard time finding any scraps of info about this car or the company on Google.
Check out that engine! Pretty crazy how valve springs used to be totally exposed.
This particular Challenger is one of my favorite cars of all time, and I always make sure to grab a snap of it when I see it.
The Can-Am group is so badass; the sound of those big-blocks is hypnotic. Some of my friends say they’re too loud, but I love it.
I don’t think you really choose a vintage racer to win races, but I’m sure it’s fun to have other similar cars to compete against.
Another one of my favorite race cars, the Gozzy Kremer Racing K3/80. This car started 3rd at the 1980 24 Hours of Le Mans, but unfortunately didn’t finish. I can’t put my finger on it but I just love that livery.
Well, that was a pretty quick post because I have a lot more historic coverage coming soon from Laguna Seca. Or at least that’s what I told myself when I wrote this post! Keep your eye on this space.
Star Road 