Laguna Seca, 19th - 20th of August, 2018

The Monterey car week is on! After a year of waiting the Monterey Peninsula is again in the focus of the classic car world with countless events over ten days. Built around the annual Concours d´Elegance at Pebble Beach the car week hosts numerous smaller concours and gatherings ranging from the Little Cars Show for micro cars to the exotics on Cannery Row for the latest supercars, single marque events like the Legends of the Autobahn to social meetings like the Quail Lodge Motorsport Gathering. For those willing to spend some serious money several auction houses including the top sales of Bonhams, Gooding and RM Sotheby´s will show their offerings in the coming days. Italian car fans can enjoy the Concorso Italiano while Porsche and Mercedes have their own meetings.

But the cars will not only be shown but also driven on the nearby Laguna Seca Raceway, now in its first year as the Weathertech Raceway after the automobile supplier took over the famous track with the corkscrew from Mazda. Starting Thursday the Motorsport Reunion will feature about 15 different race classes and for those coming early the Pre Reunion the weekend before was the place to be this weekend. 10 different classes were set up ranging from the earlier sports and GT cars to the IMSA classes, the Trans Am as well as the Can-Am and the single seaters from the Formula 5000 and the Formula 1. During the Friday the paddocks filled with the huge trailers and transporters from the race teams and the cars passed the technical check for the upcoming races.

Saturday morning the sun was out very early without the usual fog that tends to delay the races in the morning so the race class 1 was out as scheduled on 8am. Over the next hours until the lunch break the 10 classes had their first practice sessions setting a time for the grid in the afternoon with the first races of the weekend. Unfortunately some cars did not make it over the first laps and the tow truck was quite busy in the beginning until the less sorted cars were out for the rest of the weekend. Some might have used the Pre Reunion as a practice for the main event and the mechanics might have a busy week sorting the cars for the upcoming Reunion.

Unfortunately the two days passed way to fast and the race fans have to wait until Thursday to see action again but for those interested in other forms of classic car events the next days will be busy.
Tomorrow the concours week will start with the concours on the avenue in Carmel while the Quail Rally will explore the hinterland before arriving at the McCall Jet Centre Party on Wednesday evening. The Auction houses start their preview on Wednesday, the cars for the Pebble Beach Concours will do their Tour on Thursday. Friday will see the Quail Lodge Gathering and the first auction days of the big three before one has the time to go back to the track and finally the long awaited main event, the Pebble Beach Concours. The car week is running a week late after the Pebble Beach Golf Course was taken for a golf tournament on the normal date.


We will report on a daily bases from the various events although there are way too many to keep track of everything but still one might get overwhelmed by those one could visit in the limited time.

For today we have a 250 images gallery from the Pre-Reunion including all classes.

Report & images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de