For the first time, I drove in the famous “historic” races held every year at Laguna Seca in Monterey CA. I’ve attended this world class event many times but had never driven before, so a bucket list experience for me. If you go for the whole track experience, you run the weekend before in the Pre-Reunion as well. Since this was only our 4th time out running our 1976 Chevron B36, we ran every session available for both weekends, ultimately turning more laps than any other competitor in our 2-liter race group. The cars look like rolling art work and the shapes and angles are very attractive to the eye. As we found out over the course of the event, some cars are more original, authentic, and period correct than others so we were proud of our results in a truly period correct car that matches the real intent of what vintage racing is supposed to be about. Next year, we may think differently and update certain aspects of the car to be more competitive. Despite our disadvantages, we still finished 5th and 2nd in the two Pre-Reunion races and 5th and 4th in the Reunion races. Originally 27 cars were entered in our 2-liter sports racer group, although usually about 20 cars made it on track each session.
The highlight of the week was having a race long battle for 5th position in Sunday morning’s Reunion race. The race organizers and stewards preach against wheel-to-wheel action as they don’t want any contact to occur which might damage the expensive historic cars, but racers (like me) can’t resist a good challenge so the fight was on from the start with a 1980 Lucchini S280. Time and time again we went at it, with me eventually getting by with just over a lap to go. Afterward the other driver and I had a nice chat about how much fun that was for a vintage race...so be sure and watch the full race video here. In case you hadn’t noticed, the Lucchini was given my normal race number of #23 and we had to run #28, so it was only fitting that we ended up racing for supremacy on track during multiple sessions over the week long event.
Finally, I have to thank my mechanic, Jason Hohmann, for preparing the car and keeping it running perfectly throughout the week long event. These old cars are quite finicky and hard to keep going so bravo to Jason on a job well done.
