Monterey Car Week: Lexus Paces the Rolex Motorsports Reunion

By Patrick Rall - August 28, 2018

Lexus’ high-performance sedans led some of the world’s most legendary race cars around Laguna Seca.

Monterey Car Week is best-known for its sprawling car shows chock full of multi-million-dollar machines and auctions where many of the vehicles sell for over a million dollars, but the Southern California automotive festival isn’t just cars parked or rolling across the auction block. Each year, Laguna Seca Raceway plays host to the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, an event where race cars from the earliest days of motorsports hit the track and showcase their abilities alongside other vehicles from the era.

For the 2018 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, Lexus was chosen to provide the pace cars and the result is the trio of gorgeous GS F performance sedans shown here.

Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion

If you are unfamiliar with the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, here is a quick rundown.

Each year, over a thousand owners of classic race cars apply to participate in the event at Laguna Seca and in 2018, about 550 cars were chosen from those applicants. Those cars compete in 15 different classes and yes, these antique race cars do actually race wheel-to-wheel around the intricate road course.

This year, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion was broken down into the following classes:

-Pre-1940 Sports Racing, Touring and Race cars and 1927-1951 Racing Cars
-1947-1955 Sports Racing and GT cars
-1955-1961 Sports Racing over 2000cc
-1967-1984 Formula One
-1973-1981 FIA, IMSA, GT, GTX, GTU, AAGT
-1966-1972 Trans-Am
-FIA Manufacturers Championship
-1955-1962 GT
-1955-1961 Sports Racing under 2000cc
-1961-1966 GT under 2500cc
-1963-1966 GT over 2500cc
-1958-1963 Formula Junior
-1968-1976 Formula 5000
-1966-1974 Can-Am
-1981-1991 IMSA GTO/GTP Trans-Am

With so many classic, valuable race cars on the track in each class, the racing is not as aggressive as modern-day endurance racing, but the drivers are there to push the cars to the limit and they make sure to give the fans a great show.

Lexus Leads the Field

In looking at the classes, the odds are good that there were no Lexus race cars participating in the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion as competitors, but these three GS F pace cars were on the track just as much as any other vehicle during the four-day event. When not on the track, they were staged for photos and when on the track, the high performance sedans were right at home as they led the fields of classic race cars around the legendary track.