Photo courtesy of Autoblog.
by Zack Klapman
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Pebble Beach weekend has lots of stuff to see. Delicate rarities, old heroes, perfectly restored women, perfectly restored cars. There?s champagne on the grass, beers at the Baja Cantina show (which is excellent for any car guy, with people stumbling or having ?rev contests?), and fast cars?everywhere. A Datsun 510 sat next to a perfect Ferrari Daytona, which was next to another Ferrari Daytona, which was next to an excellent Porsche 917 recreation. There?s just a lot to see, all over the Monterey peninsula.
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But if you had to go to only one, it?s the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca, or as I still call it, the Historic Race.? Because there, you see the pretty cars doing their job, not sitting on a lawn. It?s like the difference between seeing Louie Armstrong at a benefit dinner, and seeing him play in a smokey club where whiskey is a more common sight than a smartphone.
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When you walk on the grass at Pebble Beach, you do so to see legendary cars. The reason many of them are so special, is their racing pedigree. Put simpler: they used to be the fastest car around. A car from the 1930 that went 165MPH at Le Mans is an amazing feat to me. One to be respected, especially when looking at tires that are as narrow as a steering wheel today.
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But when you see them on million-dollar grass, an ocean background behind them, and fancy people wearing ridiculous jackets, many of which are considering their next coffee-conversation purchase, I find my imagination has to work in over-drive. You read a car?s bio, and look at it, but you have to imagine and conceptualize its past escapades the same way you would reading the synopsis of Moby Dick. ?Oh ok, so guys hunted whales with harpoons. That must have been nuts.?
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Going to the Historic Races, is like getting on the boat. Welcome to Laguna Seca, let?s go hunt some fucking whales. You don?t have to imagine what a 12-liter engine sounds like, because it drives past you at full throttle. You don?t have to stand in front of a Shelby Daytona Coupe and say, ?Gee, Bob, you know these were quite fast on the old tarmac. I bet they sure looked fine back in their day.? because you can see them running up toward the Corkscrew, being chased by 12 Cobras, all creating a symphony that Megadeath would approve of. You can hear the cars before you enter the gate. You can walk through the pits and look at the engines, smell the gas, and see how fast a lot of them still are. Any old Porsche RSR with many hundreds of horsepower will spring down the front straight like a Greyhound racing newborn babies. Everything is shooting fire, smoke, gasoline. Old brakes, transmissions without synchros, bad aero and millions of dollars are roaring around an actual racetrack. These cars were born for this, not to sit on a lawn. The lawn came after retirement, after a few decades built their fame. After many other cars like them were sold for a few hundred bucks because they weren?t collectible. These are speed machines; rare, but built and praised for their performance. So why not watch them do what they were made to do.
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To give you an idea of what you?re missing, go over to Autoblog?s photo gallery from the event. I know, with the sound and motion, pictures are a small step away from a car parked on a lawn. But notice the variety of vintage speed and sexiness on the track. Wheel-to-wheel. If you like any of these old sports cars, this is the way to see them.
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Source: Autoblog
Source: http://www.thesmokingtire.com/2012/why-the-historic-races-rock/
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