MONTEREY, California – Words that felt spiritual spilled from those gathered Tuesday to celebrate INDYCAR’s announced return to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, a road course built in 1957.
“I came here for the first time in 1976, but of course I had read about (the track) as a kid growing up in Illinois,” Indy car legend Bobby Rahal said. “The greatest drivers in the world came to Laguna Seca to show their craft. It was a place everyone wanted to race.”
Rahal was one of them, Danny Sullivan another.
“I think back, Bobby and I raced Atlantics, Can-Am, Indy cars, sports cars, everything here, and there’s a lot of us like that,” said Sullivan, who like Rahal not only is an Indianapolis 500 winner but an Indy car champion. “The Unsers, the Andrettis, (Arie) Luyendyk, Emerson Fittipaldi – all those guys came here and if you won here, too, it was a crown jewel (victory).
“Driving here in the ‘80s and ‘90s, we had massive crowds. There would be 70,000, 80,000 people, and if you didn’t get to the track by 7 in the morning, it was a struggle to get in. The races were fantastic and everybody would get out of their cars giggling like, ‘Wasn’t that fun?’”
But Indy cars haven’t raced here since 2004, and that has left a void. “A hole in our schedule,” said Rahal, who won four straight (1984-87) at Laguna Seca.
That “hole” will be filled in 2019 when the Verizon IndyCar Series returns Sept. 20-22. Appropriately, the historic track and its flowing, picturesque circuit will be showcased through an NBC network race.
“(INDYCAR) will put our full weight behind this, and so will (NBC),” said Mark Miles, president and CEO of Hulman & Company, which owns INDYCAR and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
U.S. motorsports has its epicenters – Indianapolis for ovals, Long Beach for street racing, Watkins Glen for road racing on the East Coast. But along the Pacific Ocean is Laguna Seca, born from the historic Pebble Beach racing.
“I’ve got a whole book on the history of this area,” said Rahal, an avid student of the sport’s past. “This is one of those places where you feel the connection to our past.”
Hence the motto, “the spiritual home of road racing.”
“It’s not just the layout of the track, which is iconic with the Corkscrew and the up and the down (terrain),” said Sullivan, who lives in Pebble Beach and won at Laguna Seca in 1988 and ‘90. “It’s the crowd, the people, the community, and being here in Monterey, Pebble Beach, Carmel, all the Monterey Peninsula – that just adds to the flavor.”
Sullivan said the fact most Indy car races at Laguna Seca have been held late in the season created an atmosphere of “racing hard and letting your hair down.” Rahal said today’s INDYCAR will enjoy capping its season in one of the country’s most scenic destination areas.
“God knows there’s plenty of places here in the Monterey Bay area to celebrate a hard-fought year,” Rahal said, smiling.
See more from Tuesday's announcement at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca here: