LE MANS: 100 YEARS!
By Jake Grubb
From the venerable Bugattis, Bentleys and Alfa Romeos that dominated the Le Mans 24-Hour endurance races of 1923 to 1938, to such aeronautically-referenced creations as the Le Mans Porsche and Toyota sports racing cars of recent years, the 2022 Rolex Motorsports Reunion was an in-the-flesh travelogue through ten full decades of Le Mans racing cars and histories. No one who attended or participated had ever seen the like of it.
Definitively, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion has become a world-class annual celebration of vintage automobile racing in our time. And each year continues to be a marvel, ever since the event’s origin in 1974, featuring extraordinary varietals of racecars, always from an array of important eras. But the 2022 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, dedicated to 100 years of the incomparable Le Mans 24-hour sports car race, celebrated the cars, drivers and motorsport notables of ten full decades of Le Mans sports car racing as never before. And a great many of the cars from those extraordinary eras actually raced in front of spellbound spectators on the track!
Ferraris, Aston Martins, Mercedes-Benz’s and Jaguars from 1949 to 1955 transported us to the beginning of the “factory” eras, in which these great marques began sending their teams of competitors to Le Mans, for the purpose of achieving successes on the world racing stage. This included a rare example of the Mercedes 300, sibling to the Le Mans special 300 SLR RN 19 which was driven by Pierre Levegh in the 1955 disastrous accident that killed Levegh, over 80 spectators and injured an additional 120+ onlookers. Mercedes, of course, didn’t return to Le Mans until 1989 to renew their Le Mans racing commitment in a new era.
Ford’s 1966 defeat of Ferrari, a blast heard ‘round the world, was represented by a handful of the incredible GT40 Mk II masterpieces such as those that crossed the Le Mans finish line as a threesome in that incredible race that reshaped motor racing history. Not to mention soundly breaking the 200+ mph Mulsanne Straightaway record in the process.
The 1970-1980 time period was represented by a battalion of milestone Le Mans racecars, all emphasizing aerodynamics and safety considerations of a time period in which speeds seemed to be ungovernable due to the extraordinary advances of aerodynamics, materials, engine and tire technologies. Porsche alone, with their 935, 936, 956 and 962s broke repeated records, and was followed by the extraordinary decade of “Group C,” a formula that encouraged fuel efficiency among World Sportscar Championship cars. Examples such as the Mazda 787B and Jaguar XJR-12 blazed the track at Laguna Seca 2022.
Extremes in aerodynamics over the decades were represented by the 1950 “Le Monstre” of early 1940s and ‘50s Le Mans pioneer, Briggs Cunningham, the 1969 Porsche long-tail 908, and the incredible Porsche 917. The dizzying kaleidoscope of Le Mans racecars, present and in full function at the August 2022 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, was made possible by Historic Sportscar Racing and Weathertech Laguna Seca Raceway, in an effort unsurpassed at placing the glory of Le Mans on the American stage as never before.
