RMMR 2016 - A Race Odyssey

Cheesy titles aside, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion is an event that should land somewhere on any enthusiast’s bucket list. It’s like the Goodwood Revival (historic races) and Festival Of Speed (hillclimb) all in one. Both the caliber and variety of cars at this event is fantastic. There are a bunch of interesting people, both spectator and participant alike. Add in one of America’s best road courses, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, and you’ve got yourself a slam dunk.

I am fortunate to have stumbled into a position on the tech crew for the Historic Motorsports Association (hmsausa.com). HMSA is a historic racing organization who produces some of the best historic racing events on the continent, with some of the best historic racing cars in the world. HMSA acts as the sanctioning body for this event

The last two years, i have worked the Pre-Reunion only, which is essentially the same thing, but with about ½ the cars and 90% less spectators. This was my first year working at the main event, and I’m still reeling from it- Tech began at 9 AM on 8/17 and, and the event ran from 8/18-8/21. My mind was blown by dinnertime on 8/18, after all the cars had an opportunity to have their first practice session on track.

There were ~530 cars for the Reunion, and this year’s Featured Marque was BMW, who was celebrating their 100th birthday at this event. Hats off to BMW North America for bringing out some amazing historic race cars, legendary drivers, and throwing a helluva Spaten kegger on Thursday night in the paddock, replete with Bratwurst and scantily clad, pretzel slangin, German Beer Girls.

I only managed to snag about 250 photos...once could easily quadruple that over the 5 day span, given the time. We have a pretty busy schedule though, so most of these photos are rushed at best. So i apologize for some crappy framing, or focus, or whatever. But there is some great stuff in here, so enjoy.

Photos from Pre-Grid. Spent a lot of time here keeping an eye out!



Also spent a lot of time keeping an ear out at the Black Flag station.






























There were a bunch of 935s and 934s, which i love. Again, didn’t have time to do a lot with the camera.


















One of my favorite cars, the Eagle MKIII GTP. Uses a heavily massaged 3S-GTE.




Unfortunately, the car suffered a spectacular turbo failure and was forced to retire for the remainder of the event. Later that day, one of the corner workers found this on the track.









This car was powered by what was essentially BMW’s late 80s F1 (inline 4 turbo) engine.







































These guys came all the way from Germany.

 

For what it's worth, this is about half of the cars that were there lol.