With my boy among the Big Money.

In the paddock at Laguna Seca
with my son Winston.

Next weekend is the annual festival of automotive excess on the Monterey Peninsula. The Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach golf course sees a parade of over-restored vintage cars vying for Best in Show honors. Inland a few miles, Laguna Seca Racetrack holds races where the rich can wreck their multi-million dollar Ferraris and have a good laugh about the experience over a glass of vintage champagne afterwards. It’s all good fun.

I have attended both events on the big weekend and, frankly, neither is any fun. Both are so over-crowded that there is little possibility of enjoyment or for calm discussion with the pressured owners of some of the most magnificent vehicles ever created. Strictly for the ‘See and Be Seen’ set.

The smart money – and very little of it at that – goes to Laguna Seca the weekend before and enjoys an uncrowded paddock and relaxed owners and their mechanics, only too eager to discuss their babies. Everything used to be free, but this year entrance was $20, though parking remains free. And my 11 year old son got free entry. Not at all bad. It’s a charming throwback to the days of the true racing amateur, OK, the days of the truly wealthy racing amateur, and pretense is nowhere in sight. It’s a genuine pleasure to mix with the Ferraris, Coopers, Bentleys, Porsches, Lotuses and any number of distinguished marques with great racing provenance, along with their friendly owners.

This year saw more Porsches than you could shake a stick at, including the frightening 12-cylinder Porsche 917 which dominated Le Mans after first killing a lot of drivers. A couple of Ferrari GTOs would leave you no change from $5mm for the brace and I could not help drooling over a 4.5 litre blower Bentley, massive supercharger and all mounted up front for all to see and hear.

I took my 11 year old son this year as it’s high time the boy got some exhaust fumes in his system before we are all reduced to driving gutless electric cars charged with electricity from massively polluting coal. Such is the environmental lobby, suckered in by Big Coal. Enjoy your Tesla while the miner in West Virginia dies early from lung cancer, after a life of subsistence on coal dust sandwiches.

Anyway, visiting the practice weekend Laguna Seca paddock is truly starting at the top for the lad.

Click the image to download the slideshow.

The slideshow is some 72MB and takes 45 seconds to download on my 16Mb/s broadband. The slideshow will fade from image to image once you hit the play icon, and contains 18 images.

All that traipsing around the huge paddock is guaranteed to work up a good thirst and hunger and I urge you not to eat at any of the positively poisonous concession stands at Laguna Seca. Instead, on exiting the main gate turn right and drive a couple of miles down the road to Tarpy’s Roadhouse which has been here since 1917. Make sure to sit on the patio and its beautiful dappled sunshine will take you as close to Monet’s France as anything can on this side of the pond. Well set back from the main road, all you will hear is the sound of the birds – no piped Musak – and you can revel in the excellent food and service. So the burger and fries are $14. Two main courses and two beverages, plus the obligatory ice cream for my son set us back $45 with a 20% tip. And you are going to take it with you when you croak?

Tarpy’s Roadhouse is on the left, west of the race track.

All snaps on the Nikon D3x and the 35-70mm f/2.8 AFD Nikkor zoom. It’s specious to describe any full frame DSLR outfit as compact, but this excellent zoom on a D3x is as close as you get to an all purpose kit with just one body and lens, the latter further aided by a handy macro range, activated at the push of a button. Not only is the lens beautifully crafted and reasonably compact, it also lacks the plastic and bulk which define Nikkor’s current crop of ‘pro’ zooms, not to mention being a used bargain. Balance on the D3x is just about perfect.