Monterey Historics renamed; Dan Gurney to be honored at first event

Iconic racer Dan Gurney will be the first featured guest at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion in August, an event formerly known as the Monterey Historic Automobile Races.

Gurney will be honored with displays of Eagle race cars spanning his career, including Formula One, Indy cars, Trans-Am, Can-Am and IMSA GTP prototypes. He'll also have a public interview and autograph session. It's called “Dan Gurney--The Cars He Built, the Cars He Drove.”

The Monterey event is using a new name this year as it will be run by an entity called the Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula, or SCRAMP, after more than three decades of oversight by Steve Earle and his General Racing company.

The event will be Aug. 12-15 at Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway. Organizers could have used the Historics name for one more year under license from Earle but elected to go with the new moniker a year early.

“We thought it was better sooner rather than later to switch the name and move forward,” raceway spokeswoman Jennifer Capasso said.

Also among the other changes: a prereunion event, which is usually closed to the public, will be open to spectators this year Aug. 7-8 and allow viewing of competitors shaking down their cars the weekend before the races.

This year, the motorsports reunion expects to draw about 400 cars in 14 classes for the historic races, including F1, Trans-Am and for the first time, stock cars. There will also be a Bugatti grand prix.

The celebration of Gurney's long career is also sure to be a highlight, and it will showcase his 50 years of history at Laguna Seca that dates to his 1960 victory in the Pacific Grand Prix.

By Greg Migliore