The Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races start today, the annual celebration of history's most significant race cars.
Some 30,000 people are expected to see the racing and cruise the paddock at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca over these next three days. It's the central event of the Monterey Peninsula's Classic Car Week, which includes car shows, auctions, and simple reunions between friends.
Some 450 cars are in attendance, and many of the drivers new to the event took familization laps yesterday. As Mark Peters, the head instructor for the day, noted, "There are drivers here like John Morton and Brian Redman who originally raced these cars that we are now seeing in historic events.
"And then there are also participants here who, when they were younger, saw those gentlemen drive and admired them and now have reached a milestone in their lives that lets them live the fantasy of driving like their heroes."
Of the 450 vintage race cars competing here, one-third will be Porsches, representing 61 years of the company's manufacturing legacy.
Porsche activities for the public will include its heritage display featuring former and current race cars and a special showing of four cars from the new Porsche Museum in Germany: the 1960 Porsche Type 718 Formula 2; the 1962 Porsche Type 804 Formula 1; the 1962 Porsche Type 718 W-RS 8-cylinder Spyder; and the Porsche GT1 98LM.
The Porsche Club of America expects to have more than 200 Porsches in its Club Corral and will parade all its cars on Sunday.
Between races spectators can visit the award winning Rolex Moments in Time exhibit, which includes the 1969 Gulf Ford GT 40 that won the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans race by less than four seconds -- not to mention the 1969 908LH Porsche that took second place that year.
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