2010 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion

Classic racecars don't rumble and roar inside a museum. That's why there's the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion every August at the world famous Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

The Reunion is the world's greatest racecars in their natural environment. It's the burly grunt of the big Chevrolet V8 in a McLaren M6A Can Am car. It's the wail of a Ferrari 250 GTO's V12 as it climbs up the hill toward Turn 6. It's the riveting ricochet of a Jaguar D-Type's straight-6 as it cackles down through the corkscrew, Laguna's signature corner. This is heart-gripping stuff; something museums can only hint at.

Just don't forget to bring your earplugs.

When new, racecars are tools. And they are treated as such. Each is engineered to consume itself in the pursuit of victory. Once its racing days are done, most are stripped of usable parts and discarded. At least that's the way things used to be.

That is, before racing enthusiast Steve Earle formed General Racing back in 1970 with the explicit intent to, says the company's Web site, "encourage the restoration, preservation and the use of historic sports and racing cars." By 1974 Earle had convinced the Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula (SCRAMP) to open up the Laguna Seca Raceway to a one-day event held around the time of the nearby and well-established Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

Thus was born the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races, or The Monterey Historics as the event became known to car nuts around the world.

In retrospect, 1974 seems an unlikely time to celebrate racing. Back then people were still using old Ferrari 250 GTOs as daily drivers, Shelby Cobra 427s were just used cars and the glory days of the Trans Am series were long over. Heck, by 1974 there was so little interest in the original Can Am series that the SCCA didn't even bother to run the last race of the season. Throw in serial fuel crises and it seemed that America's love affair with cars was ending.

Earle, however, saw through all the discontent. And SCRAMP understood the vision. The first Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races attracted 66 cars. But they weren't just 66 old beaters with hazy pedigrees, they were all cars with documented racing histories and a few had substantial legends behind them. The event was an instant hit and the next year the Rolex Monterey Historics grew to two days. By the end of the '70s it was the world's premiere on-track event for historic racing cars and it has continued to be just that for four decades.

This year, the four-day event, is reborn as the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, and it promises to be more spectacular than ever. From August 12-15 Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca will again play host to the screams of hundreds of classic machines ranging from spindly racers from before World War I to recently retired Formula 1 and NASCAR machines. Nineteen race groups in all, covering nearly 100 years of automotive history.

Here Inside Line highlights our favorite racecars from this year's event. Choosing our favorites was no easy task, as the 2010 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion is jam-packed with sexy and significant machines from all over the globe. But we forged ahead and chose to feature at least one from each of the event's 19 race groups.

"The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion has long been known for attracting historic cars with authenticated race history and this year we are adhering to these same high standards," said Barry Toepke, vice president of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. "Accepted cars not only must be mechanically correct as when they were originally raced, but even sponsor decals must be period-correct. It's like a museum that bursts to life."

It promises to be, as the Historics have always been, one of the few places on Earth to see the world's greatest motorsport machines racing at speed. And that, after all, is what they were built to do.

If you value your automotive soul, don't miss it.