GALLERY: Racing, Reflecting, And Recalibrating At The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion

The further we pursue an interest, the more completely we can appreciate it, but we’ve all known an insufferable snob who lost the plot along the way. And we’ve all questioned what their game really is. Do they actually enjoy the subject at hand, or at this point do they get more satisfaction from knowing more about it than the poor glassy eyed person they’re currently chewing the ears off of with another cynical monologue? They can make you wonder if they even like what they’re talking about, but there are some things that even the most jaded among us aren’t impervious to enjoying.

Some things will always be potent enough to smack us all across the face—burgeoning fan and world-weary bore alike. The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion is one of the better examples of this unifying power to awe. A 935 charging over the straightaway crest at Laguna Seca, followed by a howling peloton of Group 4’s and 5’s greatest hits, is the perfect antidote for the “been there, done that” attitude that we’ve all been guilty of falling into at some point. And if that doesn’t do it for you, the audiovisual experience of a dozen ‘70s F1 cars pouring down the track should be enough to stir you.

The grids were slightly smaller this year for the obvious reason, but with such a high caliber between all the different run groups, we were hardly left wanting. The paddocks still teemed with the music of cold-started and warming racing engines, the chirps of rubber produced by tightly maneuvering cars with diffs that are anything but open, and the ubiquitous mix of rev-matched downshifting and the full throttle pulls that follow. Even if you’ve been lucky enough to attend this event in the past, even if you’ve seen all of these cars in action before, any notions of old news are immediately evaporated by the interminable coolness of this spectacle. We felt very privileged to be back this year, enjoying the general perks of life and the specific pleasures of one of the best scenes in historic motorsport.