The 2026 Monterey Motorsports Reunion Made Japanese Motorsport Its Featured Marque — and Added Its First JDM Car Show

The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion usually builds its year around one make, one category or one anniversary — the Jaguar E-Type at 50, the Shelby Cobra, the Porsche 911, and in 2025, 75 years of Formula 1. For 2026 it widened the lens to an entire country's racing industry. From August 12 to 15 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, the featured marque is "Icons of Japanese Motorsport," and the event added a JDM Car Show to the schedule for the first time.

Japan is not new to this stage. Nissan was the Reunion's featured marque in 2018, the first Asian manufacturer to be honored. What is new is the scope: rather than one badge, the 2026 program covers Mazda, Toyota, Yamaha, Honda, Nissan, Lexus, Acura, Infiniti and Mitsubishi at once — and, for the first time, makes room for the modern street cars that grew out of all that racing.

The Reunion's first JDM Car Show

Historic racing paddocks and JDM street-car culture usually occupy separate worlds and separate weekends. The 2026 Reunion put them on the same site.

The JDM Car Show came out of a collaboration between Mel Harder, president and general manager of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, event planner Michael Tsuchiura, Tim Flores of SuperDrive and Terence Lu of ArtHaus. It pairs a curated display with fan-facing programming: vehicle judging and awards, a Japanese stamp-book style scavenger hunt, raffles, interactive art installations, Kaiju JDM parade laps on the circuit itself, and a Friday after-hours social with a DJ set from Hyper Potions.

"This is an exciting opportunity to expand the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion experience while celebrating the incredible impact Japanese automotive culture has had around the world," Harder said when the show was announced.

Japanese racing icons at Laguna Seca

The competition and display side is where the 60 years of history sit.

Mazda's 787B — the 1991 Le Mans winner, shipped from Japan — was not entered in competition. Mazda scheduled demonstration laps and live engine start-ups across all four days, with Yojiro Terada slated to drive it in the Japanese Cars Exhibition sessions on Friday and Saturday. The 767B and 787 were entered in Group C competition, and Mazda also brought a 1967 Cosmo Sport, a 1991 RX-7 GTO, a 1992 RX-792P and the 2019 RT24-P.

Toyota's presence runs from the Toyota 7 prototype developed with Yamaha, through the AAR Celica and Eagle IMSA cars, to a 2007 NASCAR Camry and the TS050 Hybrid that took Toyota's first overall Le Mans win in 2018. The Honda and Acura entries include the 1968 S800 RSC, a 1969 N600 Baja car, a Honda-powered Williams FW11 that the organizers describe as a Piquet and Mansell car, and an Acura ARX Daytona Prototype. Nissan is represented by the BRE Datsun 2000 Roadster and 510 — the cars that built Datsun's reputation in American club racing — alongside the 1988 GTP ZX-T and the championship-winning NPT-90. The display also includes three Subaru Impreza WRXs previously driven to wins by Travis Pastrana, Colin McRae and Ken Block.

The motorcycle lineup may be rarer still. All six living American 500cc Grand Prix world champions — Kenny Roberts, Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, Kevin Schwantz and Kenny Roberts Jr — returned to Laguna Seca for exhibition laps, the first time in nearly two decades that all six have appeared on the same track together. The organizers also list Nicky Hayden's championship-winning Honda RC211V, along with title-winning Suzukis and Yamahas.

Why Japanese motorsport is the 2026 theme

The featured marque announcement, made in September 2025, deliberately cast a wide net. The organizers said the celebration would cover INDYCAR, NASCAR, Formula 1, Formula E, endurance racing, sportscar racing, off-road, rally, motorcycle and drifting — many of the disciplines Japanese manufacturers have competed in.

"Japanese racers and car makers have helped deliver some of the most memorable cars and moments in motorsports history," said April Henderson, director of the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Takuma Sato, twice an Indianapolis 500 winner, put it more personally: "As a Japanese driver, it is an honor to see Japan's racing heritage recognized as the featured marque at Monterey's historic reunion."

The timing is worth noting even if the organizers have not drawn the line themselves: the theme arrives as more Japanese performance cars from the 1990s and early 2000s clear the US 25-year import threshold, one build month at a time. Monterey did not create that audience, but the 2026 program gives it a more prominent place within Car Week than it has had before.

The Reunion's final day is Saturday, August 15, with the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance following on August 16.