Diary Of A Petrol Head

The annual pilgrimage to Monterey

- Sandra Griswold

DATELINE AUGUST 2017,

Monterey Peninsula, California

August 11th through August 20th – Incorrectly referred to as “Monterey Car Week”, this is actually much more than a single week of festivities!

Tip: It is necessary to organize your schedule. You wouldn’t want to miss something from the massive calendar of events, they only happen once a year. The local little newspaper, The Carmel Pine Cone, lists everything. It’s free and distributed around town in stacks for the taking.

The Peninsula is a busy place for ten days. There are traffic jams, but, as I have noted in previous articles on Monterey in Rewind, these might consist of an entire show of Lamborghinis exiting a grassy field nose-to-tail for a mile! On the Thursday before Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, traffic will also be stopped in some places by the California Highway Patrol to allow the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance cars passage non-stop through red lights. There’s a long morning ride that stops for a two-hour lunch break with the cars abandoned for spectators to marvel at on Ocean Avenue in Carmel.

In listing this loose calendar of many of the happenings, the cast of organizers, entrants, and spectators also deserve mention. Some attendees fill several roles by bringing more than one car; one for an auction, another one or two to be raced, and one to show at one of the several concours around the Peninsula.