After three celebrations on the East Coast at Daytona and Lime Rock, Porsche’s triennial Rennsport Reunion came to California in 2011 for a wonderful October weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Rennsport Reunion IV was well-received by a large, enthusiastic crowd, and proved a fitting, though unstated, tribute to the late Porsche pr boss Bob Carlson, the California native from whose mind the original idea for such an event sprang.
Beyond its usual display of some 300 Porsche competition cars, RR IV also celebrated the North American unveiling of Porsche’s new 2012 911 Carrera. That debut was supplemented by an incredible display of significant cars from 911 history that took up weekend residency in the track’s row of permanent pit lane garages, with examples ranging from privateer Jack Ryan’s 1966 Daytona 24 Hours class-winning 911 through multiple interim iterations to the current 911 GT3 R Hybrid, and gave onlookers a potent evolutionary lesson in the permutations possible on the classic 911 theme.
Among those aforementioned 300 cars were numerous Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring winners, as well as machines that claimed championships in the Can-Am, Trans-Am, IMSA and ALMS. Making up the numbers beyond the 911 contingent were various 356, 550, 904, 906, 908, 910, 917, 928, 934, 935, 936, 944, 956 and 962 models, as well as the more recent RS Spyder and a couple of Porsche-powered Formula One machines, a World Championship-winning TAG-engined McLaren MP4/2B and an example of the somewhat less-successful Footwork-Porsche. Among the most popular stops in the paddock were the Martini & Rossi-liveried 935/78, more popularly known as Moby Dick, the 16-cylinder Can-Am prototype and the brand-new 918, all of which attracted constant crowds throughout the weekend.
In addition to the cars, also on hand were many of the men who designed, built and drove them, and while most of the drivers took part in autograph sessions for the fans, it was interesting to see that it was possible for the design and development talent to wander the paddock virtually unrecognized by all but the most faithful devotees of the marque.
