Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival 2011 Features McLaren

The Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival 2011 will be held the weekend of June 4-5, at Infineon Raceway Sears Point in Sonoma, California. The second annual Sonoma Historics will feature the iconic McLaren marque, announced Steve Earle, president of General Racing, Ltd.
“McLaren, like Ferrari and Porsche and other great names in motorsports, created the bloodlines that we worship today in historic automobile racing,” said Earle, who for four decades has devoted his life to organizing historic car racing events and is the originator of the Wine Country Classic that preceded the Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival for 24 years, as well as the Monterey Historic Automobile Races.
“Choosing McLaren as our marque means we will pay special tribute to the name, the teams, and the cars that McLaren has produced in the past and will produce in the future, adding another dimension of enjoyment for both competitors and spectators.”
The first edition of the epic Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival, held at the scenic 2.52-mile Infineon Raceway in 2010, hosted 375 historic race cars, some dating as far back as 1915, in a series of 13 race groups. This year’s highly-anticipated event has already reached the maximum 400 entries, 26 of which are authentic McLarens that were raced since the famed Bruce McLaren of New Zealand founded the McLaren racing team in 1963.
(See 2010 Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival – Results and Photo Gallery)
“These beautiful machines on the track combined with the Sonoma wine country experience makes our historic car weekend unlike anything else on our schedule,” said Infineon Raceway President and General Manager Steve Page. “Adding the allure of McLaren and the racing heritage that name represents will make the 2011 Sonoma Historics a weekend we’ll look forward to all year.”
The weekend’s events will include a series of “time capsule” historic races each day, the Historic Race Car Festival in the Sonoma Plaza benefiting Speedway Children’s Charities, wine country tours, seminars and other special programs to be announced.
A popular event away from the track is the Wine Country Pavilion, where the best food and wine from the Sonoma and Napa Valleys may be sampled. Admission to the Pavilion is free with an event ticket.
David Grandin, a local Northern California artist from Pleasant Hill in the East Bay, created this year’s event poster, depicting the No. 4 McLaren driven by Bruce McLaren in the 1968 SCCA Can-Am Series.
For more information, visit www.sonomahistoric.com.
[Source: General Racing; photo credit: Dennis Gray]