A Different GTR
One of the big attractions at the Sonoma Speed Festival was an artificial lawn space that was home to just three cars. One of them was this legendary McLaren F1 GTR “Long Tail”. When I first spotted it, they were warming up the engine, and there was quite a crowd on hand.
Sonoma Speed Festival 2019: Track Action
“You can’t drive a Van Gogh,” as the saying goes. Cars can be admired for their physical beauty, like a painting, but they also have a higher functional purpose. So when you see cars just sitting static, especially race cars, it feels like something is missing. When they’re in motion on a race track, everything clicks into place.
Sonoma Speed Festival 2019: Poke Around the Paddock
Not exactly a new event, more like a rebrand: that was the story heading into the Sonoma Speed Festival, which is now “the” historic event of the year at Sonoma Raceway now that SVRA isn’t hosting their vintage racing event there.
The State of the Art
The Sonoma Speed Festival seemed to be a celebration of automotive history before the year 2000, although there was one notable exception: Mercedes brought out their 2016 Formula One racer, the W07.
Star Road 