WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca Management Contract
It wasn’t a surprise that the County of Monterey wanted to offload the long-time operator of Laguna Seca, the county-owned racetrack and recreation area off Highway 68 that draws hundreds of thousands of spectators every year and pumps multiple millions of dollars into the local economy. That operator, SCRAMP (Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula) had struggled financially for years, and found no friend in the county, which for years refused its pleas to modernize and upgrade its facilities. What is surprising: How the new operator, veteran hotelier John Narigi, a political ally of several elected supervisors and a mover-and-shaker in the business community, came into a sweetheart deal to get the lucrative contract on his own. If the county was expecting a yes man in Narigi, though, they made a gigantic mistake, as evidenced by his March 10 comments at the supes’ meeting, in which he warned them that unless the facility received serious and significant attention and dollars to modernize, all the fancy race operators (Ferrari, Porsche, IndyCar, IMSA) whose contracts are up in two years would likely disappear.