Monterey Historics

Spent the weekend flagging for SCCA at the Monterey Historics, which was held at Laguna Seca. Some of the most valuable cars in the world were on display in a racing environment.

The featured marque was Jim Hall’s stable of Chaparral race cars. Hall was a Texas oilman who had an engineering background and a passion for racing. He made the decision in 1962 that he needed to build his own racecar to compete with the Scarab, which was the roadster to beat at that time.

Hall ventured into the racecar R&D business and developed a stable of cars that he dubbed his “Chaparrals”. These are some of the most beautiful racecars in the world. I remember seeing a few of these when I was a kid, including his “Sucker Car” or the Chaparral 2J.


This state of the art car had two lawnmower engines affixed to the rear end of the car, that turned two fans. The fans would generate air flow or suction that would force the tail end of the car closer to the ground. This turbine induced down-force would help the car stick to the road, which also resulted in higher speeds around the race track. It was an engineering marvel.

Hall was at Laguna over the weekend to showcase his cars, which included several parade laps around the course.

There were other cars that I remember from my childhood, including 30+ Trans Am cars from the early 70’s and 20+ Can-Am cars from the late 60’s. These were the cars that I was exposed to by my dad when I first started going to races as a kid. It was a blast down memory lane.


The great Stirling Moss was also in attendance, to run laps in the Mercedes 300SLR, that he drove to win the Mille Miglia in Italy in 1955. Mille Miglia literally translate to “1000 Miles”, which was the length of the race. Moss did hot laps in the car, with Tonight Show host Jay Leno by his side. What makes this car really interesting is that it’s valued at over $25 million today, because of its history. It is a one of a kind.

Checkout out some of the photos I took of the event:

[General event photos]

[Chaparral photos]