On Sunday (May 17), Hollis and I drove the Red Menace down to Monterey and attended the Verizon Festival of Speed. That's the sponsor's name for the Rolex GrandAm Race at Laguna Seca. For those of you that don't follow this form of road racing, two classes of race cars compete simultaneously. The DP (Daytona Prototype) are special-built racing cars in an aerodynamic coupe body. The slower class is GT (Grand Touring), replicas of street cars.

DP body/chassis combinations are built by a just a few manufacturers. Riley is the most common. There are also a few from Dallara, Lola, and Crawford. The real variety comes from the many engine manufacturers involved: Ford, Pontiac, Porsche, BMW, Lexus, and Honda. Over in the GT class, the contenders include Mazda, Porsche, and Pontiac, along with a couple of very slow (comparatively) Corvettes. The Mazda's look like normal RX-8s but have a tubular chassis with a carbon-fiber replica body and a three-rotor Wankel engine that produces about 420 HP.

The GrandAm rules are constantly jiggered in an attempt to maintain parity among the top group of competitors. This often results in some interesting racing. Sunday's winners in the DP class were Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney (yes, son of Dan) in the Gainsco Pontiac-Riley operated by Bob Stallings Racing. The GT race was dominated by the SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 driven by Nick Ham and Silvain Tremblay. A selection of pictures from before and during the race are in the gallery. The complete results are listed at MotorSports.com.

I finally got to go to these very interesting and nostalgic auto races at Laguna Seca.  This was the 35th annual Monterey Historic Automobile Races.  Back in the day, I used to go to races at Laguna Seca regularly and I love the track.  It was great to go back.  My son Alec and my friend John Enright went with me on this trip down memory lane. 

We almost didn't go.  Originally, we had tickets to the Champ Car races that were scheduled for last May.  When Champ Car folded, the Laguna Seca folks offered me an exchange for Monterey Historic tickets and off we went.  We had Suite reservations over the pits that included breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday and an open bar on both days.  We didn't make it for breakfast on either day, the buffet lunch was okay but not great, and our total open bar use for the weekend was about four sodas and a couple of cups of coffee.  So what I am saying is, skip the suite, take some camp chairs up to the corkscrew, and enjoy the racing for about $350 less.

The good things about the suite were 1) it had it's own bathroom, 2) there was TV coverage inside,  3) you had a good view of turns 10 and 11 (but not at the same time), 4) you could see the entire front straight, and 5) access to the paddock area was just a few steps away. 

There were eight historic races on Saturday plus the "Race of Legends".  Sunday had seven races.  All races were 10 laps.  There were also demonstrations of Mario Andretti's World Championship winning 1978 Lotus 79 (driven by Mario himself) and a group of legendary Toyota racing cars led by Timo Glock driving the 1992 Toyota Eagle Mk III (an IMSA GTP powerhouse:  2.1 liters, 750 bhp). 

We watched all of the races but a few had special significance for me. On Saturday, Group 4A included 1956-1961 Sports Racing Cars over 2500 cc.  These were cars I grew up with when I went to the races at Riverside and Pomona in 1958, 1959, and 1960.  Some of the cars that I saw race 50 years ago were in this race.  In particular, this race was won by a 1958 Reventlow Scarab, just like the 1958 Riverside Grand Prix, though I think this is the sister car to Chuck Daigh's winning Scarab.  Better yet, the second place car in this race was the same 1958 Ferrari 412 MI that Phil Hill drove at Riverside in '58 - qualified second and chased Daigh most of the race.  The Maserati Tipo 61 "Birdcage" that Dan Gurney and Stirling Moss drove to victory in the 1960 Nurburgring 1000 was also in this race.  Probably the sweetest sounding racer was David Love's 1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa (early version with Scaglietti body).  This beautiful car has competed in all 35 of the Monterey Historic Races!

Also on Saturday was Group 7A, 1966 to 1974 Can-Am Racers.  These were the cars that introduced me to Laguna Seca in the early '70s.  Somewhere around here I have a picture I took of Mark Donohue coming out of the Corkscrew on his way to victory in the magnificent Sunoco Porsche 917/30.  Can-Am was one of the peaks in the ups and downs of American auto racing.  In this race, Bobby Rahal came from the middle of the pack to win in a 1970 Lola T310.  It shows that in these types of racing, the driver is far more important that the car in determining the winner.  This race was mostly Lolas and McLarens.  Unfortunately, the last Can-Am Champion Shadow DN4 was entered but did not start.

The best race of the day (meaning that they were really racing without tiptoeing through the corners) was Group 6A, 1966 to 1970 Trans-Am Cars.  There were 34 cars entered and there were lots of races within the race.  Boy, are they loud!

My favorite race on Sunday was Group 6B, 1968-1978 Formula One racers.  A lot of the cars in this race had been backmarkers in their first life but there were still a few special cars here.  The 1978 World Championship Lotus 79 finished third.  Second place saw a very sharp 1977 Wolf WR4.  First place went to one of the most unique F1 cars of all time, the 1976 Tyrell P34 six-wheeler.  The F1 racers accelerated up the front straight at an amazing rate - easily the fastest cars of the weekend, including the monster Can-Am racers.

 It was a great weekend of unique racing cars strutting their stuff.  I did not take any video but did take about 800 stills, of which, 94 are here.

This is a belated post about the 34th Long Beach Grand Prix - also the last ChampCar race.  My son Eric and friend Ralph accompanied me to the LBGP April 18-20.  We all had a great time, absorbing the spectacle and the sounds.  We had grandstand seats at turn six which also includes a view of about a third of the main straight leading up to turn one. 

We drove the Shinka down to Long Beach for it's last outing before retirement.  I took some pictures at the race, all from near turn six.  I'll add some more comments about the weekend later.