The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca may be an old event, but the scenes every August are anything but. Think more along the lines of a 15 year old Scotch rather than a Coors Light well past it’s suggested best-before date. Historic racing keeps getting bigger and bigger each year, with more events around the world as the fanbase grows and yearns for these iconic machines of yesteryear. Yes, it’s usually the same cars at each edition, but this installment had a new addition: the Masters Endurance Legends. What’s the Masters Endurance Legends? Let’s take a trip through a (relatively recent) memory lane.
It Reminds Me Of…
The setting is Florida, early 2000s. The grid is lined up for the 12 Hours of Sebring. Up front is the Le Mans-conquering Audi R8. In GTS you have a Corvette C5-R, Saleen S7, and Ferrari 550 while GT features 996-generation Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs, BMW M3s, Ferrari 360s, and even a Panoz, too. This is the racing I grew up on, having formed the basis for my love of sports car and endurance racing. In fact, the 2005 12 Hours of Sebring holds a special place in my memory, as it was the first endurance race I ever watched.
Seeing the lineup of cars in this event gave goosebumps that made me feel like I was 12 years old again. Also, I was here at Laguna Seca in 2005 for the season-ending ALMS Monterey Sports Car Championship – I remember seeing some of these exact cars here. It was a most welcome return. Some say nostalgia is a condition, treating it like a disease. In this situation though, who cares.
The Masters series, though, extends further than just this one generation of racing cars, featuring racers from the 90s through the end of the 2000s. But the best part, and really, this is the best part: Most races at the Monterey Motorsports Reunion last the best part of 25 minutes to keep the action turning throughout the day and to get all the respective classes in. The Masters race, though? Double it. Hey, it does have endurance in the name. 45 minutes might not sound like endurance, but it’s an extra 20 minutes that you otherwise wouldn’t have. The longer i get to hear and see these cars on track, the better.
BMW In The Lead
Leading the way for the Saturday AM race was BMW legend Bill Auberlen in the mighty V12 LMR. The V12 LMR was BMWs prototype effort in the late 1990s that yielded overall victory at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans. Like the name suggests, it’s a V12 missile; no small-displacement turbocharging here. The wail from that sonorous mill could be heard from across the track. It was a favorite of mine in Gran Turismo, to see it take to the track with my own eyes was a fantastic sensory fulfillment.
A E92 M3 GT2, E46 M3 GTR, and E36 M3 also were part of BMWs factory efforts for the weekend, with factory drivers John Edwards and Connor De Phillipi behind the wheels of the former two. The M3 GT2, originally run by Bobby Rahal’s squad, has a flat-plane crank 4.0L V8, that sounds more akin to two smaller four-bangers at war with one another. The E46 M3 GTR, though, had a piercing, exotic wail from its own 4.0L V8, with Edwards bouncing the rev limiter at the end of the front straight each lap before nailing the brakes for the turn 2 hairpin. The E36, while lacking the specialness of the later model M3 race cars, was a joy to see on track with the highly exaggerated wide wheel arches and the smooth, almost vintage inline 6 soundtrack.
The Grammy Goes To..
Best sounding car of the group goes to that Ferrari 550 GTS, though. The raw, unfiltered, banshee of a V12 set the crowd alive. It truly makes me miss the real days of GT1, with large displacement V8s and V12s – the real bruisers. Newer, turbocharged GTE cars like the M8, Vantage, 488, and GT just can’t match the magic these older cars produced. The red livery of the 550 was most fitting as well – did you really expect it to be any other color? He spent most of the race dicing with the Audi R8, one of the most successful LMP1 cars ever. For those hoping to recreate the 2003 and 4 Le Mans battles between Corvette and Ferrari, it was a little disappointing to see the Ferrari and the lone, thundering C5.R never together racing on track.
Other exciting races? Formula 1 was back with a plethora of 70s and early 80s F1 cars. The Cosworth DFVs rang your eardrums for half an hour, but nobody was complaining at all. Seeing and hearing their splendor immediately made me want to rewatch Rush for the umpteenth time. Such fantastic machinery at a time when each car was notably different, as teams all were racing towards innovation as much as racing on the track. The ground effects-laden Lotus 91 led the pack in the ever-iconic John Player Special black and gold color scheme.
Pick Your Flavor
From there, the racing ranges from 1930s Grand Prix cars to 1950s Sports Cars worth millions of dollars, all the way to Group C/IMSA GTP cars. The latter produced a thrilling fight for the lead between the AAR Eagle MKIII and Mazda RX792, whose small, revving-to-infinity rotary faced the Eagle’s hugely boosted 4-cylinder. The Eagle was the most successful racer ever in IMSA GTP, taking 21 wins in only 27 events.
The Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca remains a fan favorite of Monterey Car Week. From the exciting action on track to the low entry price, it’s easy to see why. Plus, the paddock is free to walk through to see every car up close and allowing you to chat with mechanics and drivers. You can either go to a car show and simply look and gaze at classics, or, you could watch them race instead. Or you can go to them all, that’s what most do.
I love cars, but I love racing even more, and getting the chance year after year to see some of the most storied cars lap one of the world’s greatest circuits is the gift that keeps on giving. And this year, it only got better, thanks to the inclusion of that aforementioned new class. My hope is that the class only expands, basically to the point of being an exact recreation of that initial 12 Hours of Sebring I watched as a kid. I think I’m going to have to go play some Gran Turismo now…
