There are three events on earth worthy of multi-calendar year anticipation: the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup, and Porsche Rennsport Reunion. The magnetic draw to this motorsports mecca is felt by everyone, with Porsche racing legends, factory supported teams, privateers, club racers, and fans alike descending on WeatherTech Laguna Seca Raceway to experience the magic.

The experience:

Arriving at WeatherTech Laguna Seca Raceway that morning was one of the most surreal experiences of our lives. The entrance to the track was besieged by a multi-mile, single file line of Porsches winding through the canyons and into the dusty parking lots where it was completely normal to see a courageous Carrera GT or 918 Spyder owner forging up an unpaved hill to find parking. As soon as our feet hit the sand and the rental car doors shut, you could hear it. A menacing flat-six roar in the distance shifting from second to third. We followed our ears until we reached the track entrance and, at last, we set foot into Rennsport utopia where there was simply no compass required, you just followed whatever direction your heart took you.

We strided into the paddock where crossing guards were holding back waves of spectators and iPhone paparazzi as a John Wyer Gulf Porsche 917K and Bruce Canepa’s Porsche 935 came thundering by, turning heads like A-list celebrities. There were rows of mechanics preparing cars for battle, golf carts running stacks of tires to their future demise, and engines firing up around every corner while the small displacement 911 class swarmed the track like a pack of angry wasps. It was overwhelming and borderline spiritual to experience all of this at once. Porsche race cars mean so much to us, we obsess over their technical details, their liveries, and winning legacies, but we’ve only ever experienced most of them through the pages of books or pixels on our screens. To have the opportunity to see them with our own eyes, to feel them shake our souls as they charge past us at the red line was something entirely different. We were hearing flat-sixes in our sleep.

Photo by Christen Gilbertsen