Monterey Pilgrimage–Can anything good come from wasting one’s youth at the Monterey Historics…I’d like to think so

The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion (formerly known as the Monterey Historic Automobile Races) is 40 years old this year! Pheww, I’ve got to let that one soak in a bit. That factoid serves as a slightly painful touchstone to my advancing age, considering that this one event has been an annual fixture for damn near my entire life!

While I’m not 100 percent certain, I believe my first trip to the Monterey Historics was in 1979, at the tender age of 13! Back in “them olden times” there was just the races at the track and the Pebble Beach concours on Sunday. There wasn’t the week-long constellation of concours, auctions, shows, club meetings, dinners, product launches, film festivals and ancillary satellite events that now constitute “Classic Car Week.”