NorCoast Rally 2027: Ashland to Monterey, the Long Way to Car Week

Anybody can do Oregon to Monterey in a day. The NorCoast Rally is built on the argument that you shouldn't. Two driving days from Ashland, Oregon to Monterey, down the Northern California coast, timed to put you on the Peninsula as Car Week begins. The first running is estimated mid-August 2027, by application, and deliberately small.

The route

Six stages, and the shape of it is the point — west out of Ashland, down to the water, then the coast the whole way rather than the valley.

Stage 1 — The Bigfoot Byway

State Route 96 out of Ashland, chasing the Klamath River through a steep canyon. Miles of tight two-lane with corners signed at 20. A 25-foot carved Sasquatch waits at Willow Creek, which tells you something about the tone.

Stage 2 — Avenue of the Giants

Thirty-one miles of old-growth coast redwoods on the old 101. At Leggett the road narrows to the Chandelier Tree — 315 feet tall, with a hole cut clean through it in 1937. You drive under two thousand years of bark.

Stage 3 — Highway 1 starts here, then Mendocino

Leggett is where Highway 1 actually begins. The climb over to Rockport is tight and empty, then the Pacific opens up: Fort Bragg, the Mendocino headlands, and the first night on the water.

Stage 4 — Golden Gate and Lombard Street

Across the bridge, then eight hairpins down Russian Hill. Two photographs the whole world recognises, back to back.

Stage 5 — Devil's Slide to Santa Cruz

Out through Pacifica onto Devil's Slide — forty-five miles of coast without a single traffic light — past Half Moon Bay to the second night in Santa Cruz. Short hop to the Peninsula in the morning.

Stage 6 — Monterey

You arrive where the car world is already pointed, and the week is yours from there: the Reunion at Laguna Seca, Werks Reunion, the concours fields.

What the entry covers

• Full route maps and turn notes, redwoods to Monterey
• One night on the Mendocino coast
• One night in Santa Cruz
• The driver and one guest
• The photographs from the road

Not included, stated just as plainly on their site: the night before the rally, any Car Week lodging on the Peninsula, food, fuel, and your car and getting it there.

Who it's for

Porsche is at the heart of it — well-sorted cars of any marque are welcome. One guest per driver. It is invitation-only for the first running, so the process is an application rather than a checkout: tell them about the car and the driver, and they follow up if it's a fit.

The 2026 scout run

Before the first proper running there is a scout mission this August, and it is worth knowing about because it is doing real work: settling where next year's coast night should be.

• Monday August 10 — departs Ashland in the morning.
• Night of the 10th — on the Northern California coast. This is the stop being scouted.
• Night of the 11th — San Francisco.
• Night of the 12th — Santa Cruz, a short run from the Peninsula.

That timing is not a coincidence. It drops the group onto the Monterey Peninsula in the opening days of Car Week — the day-by-day schedule is worth reading alongside it, particularly the Friday when Werks Reunion and The Quail collide.

Dates, honestly

The 2027 rally does not have confirmed dates yet. The organisers peg it at mid-August and confirm once the Peninsula publishes the Car Week calendar — sensible, given the whole route is timed to land on it. If you are planning around it, treat mid-August 2027 as the working assumption and check norcoastrally.com for confirmation.

Both runs are in the directory — see them alongside the rest of the Oregon calendar, or the full Monterey Car Week listing for what waits at the other end.