What better way to share with everyone the immense satisfaction we and many fans who visited us and wrote to us than to publish here Rob Manson’s letter to our own car drivers and owners. Here’s a summary, but you can see the full version at https://dmtrg.com/wp-content/uploads/2026_September_Bulletin.pdf
DEL MONTE TROPHY RACE GROUP
75th Celebration Pebble Beach Road Races
Carmel Valley, September 1, 2026
It was a wonderful 10 day celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Pebble Beach Road Races. We had 40 spectacular cars front and center at the Reunion. Thank you all for bringing your cars out and for putting on such a magnificent display. We set out several years ago to use the 75th Anniversary to bring the history and importance of the sports cars and road racing in the early 1950s to new generations of motorsports fans. Our cars gathered together under a single tent in the paddock, and the 4 days of track action, along with the exhibit at the entrance to the tent, told the story in the most comprehensive way possible.
Online gallery of photos by Colin Warnes of all of us, on track and in the paddock. See yourself at https://dmtrg.com/reunion-photos-2026-all-40-cars/
You can access our logos for media use at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/153RRgtYwP03NDGPzp2CMAOZmWGtodcCi?usp=sharing
Our Facebook page got over 150,000 views in the 28 days prior to August 16 alone.
The Del Monte Trophy Foundation produced, for our group at the Reunion, the “Course of History”, a walk-through exhibition of a couple of dozen period photos of the Pebble Beach Road Races with accompanying info panels. The Foundation is our new 501K charity which will be a driving force as we continue to tell the history of the early days of road racing on the West Coast and of the sports cars that made it possible.
Thank all of you who contributed to the Foundation’s GoFundMe account or who purchased our event swag, the profits of which went in the charitable Foundation too. Although the Dickie shop shirts and T-shirts sold out we have small numbers of Pebbles, decals and packs of cards left. If you would like to top up our funds, do please go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-the-del-monte-trophy-foundations-education-efforts.
In addition to our activities at the Reunion we took our 75th Anniversary celebration to a number of events during July and August with flyers and Pebble Beach race cars. The annual (informal/unofficial) tour of the Pebble Beach race course in July was the first. We were featured at the July Cars and Coffee gathering at Baja Cantina with 6 Pebble Beach cars front and center. We did the Reunion Alvarado Street Kick Off event. We did the Monterey British Concours and the Carmel Concours for a Cause.
We participated with Ken Gross, Simon Taylor and Mark Brinker in the Pebble Beach Concours Forum Heroes of the Forest: Revisiting the Pebble Beach Road Races. The sons and daughters of racing greats, Phil Hill, Bill Pollack, Ken Miles, Carroll Shelby, Sterling Edwards, Fred Knoop, Jack McAfee and William Hanssen were present and shared stories that their fathers had told about the Pebble Beach Road Races.
Three of our cars won special awards at the Reunion: The HWM Stovebolt Special won the Rolex Del Monte Trophy Race Group Best Car; the 1953 Tatum GMC Special and its driver Dave DZ Zurlinden won the Rolex Made in America – Coolest American Built Race Car; and the 1950 Allard K2 Buick won the Rolex award The Passion and the Spirit presented by Bonhams: Johnny Mote Jr.
Six of the cars that raced in our Saturday race were invited to be shown at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and on Sunday the HWM Stovebolt Special won Best of Class and the Parkinson Jaguar Special, presented by race winner Derek Hill, won the special Phil Hill Trophy.
At our annual post-race gathering, the two cars chosen for the perpetual Del Monte Trophy were the HWM Stovebolt Special in the Over 1500cc class and the Ken Miles MG Special “Flying Shingle” in the Under 1500cc class. Congratulations to Simon Taylor and Bill Hart as they join our Hall of Fame, alongside the greatest drivers of the Pebble Beach Road Races era.
Videographer Geoff Zimmerman and crew were with us throughout the week; film documentary to come
Mark Brinker’s extraordinary book Heroes of the Forest: The Complete History of the Pebble Beach Road Races, 1950-1956 was presented at all of the major Monterey Car Week events. You can order it for October delivery using the QR code to the right or via https://heroesoftheforestbook.com.