01 Rolex Monterey Motorsport Pre-Reunion

Laguna Seca, 12th to 14th of August, 2022

The Monterey Car week is back. After missing the last years car week due to the travel restrictions coming into the USA and the cancellation of the 2020 week due to the outbreak of the Covid virus we are finally back to Monterey after three years. Some things have changed since the 2019 edition and some stayed the same.

One of the biggest changes is the lack of the Concours on the Avenue on Tuesday in downtown Carmel as the founder unfortunately passed away recently and it looks like nobody took over the baton.

The Wednesday will also see some news as the McCall Jet Center party was sold to the automotive lifestyle brand and specialty insurance provider Hagerty who already took over the Amelia Island Concours earlier this year. So now referred as the 2022 Motorlux it remains to be seen how much of the concept will change, new is certainly the associated auction of the Broad Arrow group that will bring back auctions to the airport where Christies� formerly hosted theirs.

The concept of the races changed as well as the races will not be held on Sunday anymore as apparently some entrants complained about the clash with the main event, the annual Pebble Beach Concours the very same day. So instead of having divided the field into two different groups running either Saturday or Sunday this year all the race groups will practice, qualify and race every day from Thursday. But people visiting Laguna Seca will still have something on Sunday as a new Hillclimb is introduced to go up to Corkscrew the other way round. With a car meeting attached this might be fun for the entire family.

Thursday will be again the Tour d´Elegance but this also sees some changes as the tour does not stop in Carmel anymore. It looks like Carmel-by-the-Sea likes to visit all the paying guest in their hotels for car week but they want to avoid the hassle of a car event in the middle of their small town. The cars will return early to the start opposite of the Gooding tent at the Pebble Beach 17-miles drive leaving time to spend in the afternoon.

As usual the car week is unofficially kicked off the weekend before with the pre-reunion. For those coming from further away and wanting to make more out of the week there is the possibility to race the weekend before. As a lot of huge trailers from race preparation companies are making their way to the track anyway it makes sense to arrive a few days early to have some fun in a less competitive environment in smaller race groups. The 14 groups intended to race next weekend were cut down to 10 featuring several sports car classes including next week�s feature of the Centenary of the Le Mans 24 hours. Furthermore a few single seaters could be seen including the Formula Atlantic cars, Formula Junior as well as a small field of Formula 1 cars.

Comparing the pre-reunion with the previous years it seemed to be a little bit down on cars, some of the race groups were rather small like the Saloon races or the Formula 1. Also, some changes to the track appeared in the recent years as due to the IndyCar series hosted here there are much more fences set up than in the past restricting the photo opportunities a little bit. But still the pre-reunion is a great way to start and especially the Le Mans Celebration the next week looks to be a great one as a separate tent was set up for the display already.

We now have compiled a gallery of the races to look at and to get an impression what will come up next week, but unfortunately no pre-war races were on the schedule this week as especially the pre-1920 race group looks like to be special.

Like in the past the groups drove two times during the day, once before lunch and once in the afternoon with 10 groups the sessions were rather short but fortunately the drivers were reasonably and so not big delays meant that all cars could be seen every day.

We will keep you up to date as usual during the next days about what goes on in Monterey, unfortunately there is again way too much to see to cover all of it, so a few events will be missed like the very popular Concours of the Lemons (the ugly car concurs) that will be held on Saturday and that collides with our only opportunity to get back to the track as Friday is again blocked by the Quail Motorsport Gathering at the Quail.