Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Picture Gallery

The 2015 running of the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion was held August 13-16 at the 11-turn Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, California.

For those who don’t know me I spent the 2015 Monterey Classic Car Week photographing the vintage car races taking place at the Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway. I was at the track from Friday morning of the Pre-Reunion to the last lap of the Reunion the following Sunday. This year’s images were directed by the weather.

On Saturday and Sunday of the Pre-Reunion, “Monterey Sunshine” (fog and overcast conditions) blessed those shooting the event, while strong sunlight was the weather theme at the Reunion. As an aside, fog has been a feature of the Reunion for at least the past ten years, with one, two or three mornings opening with fog or overcast conditions. I am making this point for those that may notice a difference in my coverage of the Monterey Motorsport Reunion this year, i.e not so many cars under the soft, fog-filtered light.

This year I looked for early morning or late afternoon back light and strong shadows to shape the cars at speed. I lost much of the bright colors but gained contrast combined with long, strong shadows to accent the cars. Under the midday sun, I looked for multi-car images using a 500mm lens to compact two, three or four cars into one image.

Another weather connected aspect of 2015 was the smog or smoke from Northern California wild fires. Not only was the light a very warm yellow but many images shot into the light show an almost Doris Day-look diffusion from the smoke.

I have included in this last group of images a number of portraits. Some are candid and some are the result of ‘look in the lens please’. My favorite images of the week will include the portraits of Martin Lauber, Harindra De Silva, Jon Shirley and Steve Schmidt as the sit in their cars awaiting the start of their race.

Finally a thank you to one of my favorite Corvette drivers, Jenni Swanson and her dad, for taking the time to let Bill Wagenblatt and me photograph their ex-Alan Green 1964 Chevrolet Cheetah.

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In addition to the main photo gallery, Senior Photographer Dennis Gray also produced the following outstanding images from this year’s Monterey Motorsports Pre-Reunion and Reunion. We split up Dennis’ pictures into two galleries. The first gallery starting below features our favorite images, all displayed in the full-width view of Sports Car Digest, while the second gallery can be found on the last page of the article and gives a comprehensive view of all the photographs. To see more from Dennis, visit HistoricMotorPrints.com/.

Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Featured Picture Gallery

 

 

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Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Featured Picture Gallery Page Two

 

 

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Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Featured Picture Gallery Page Three

 

 

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Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Featured Picture Gallery Page Four

 

 

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Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Featured Picture Gallery Page Five

 

 

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Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Featured Picture Gallery Page Six

 

 

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Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Featured Picture Gallery Page Seven

 

 

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Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2015 – Main Picture Gallery (click image for larger picture and description)

 

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[Source: Dennis Gray]