Originally posted to rec.autos.sport.misc on 10/28/94. A month or so ago I promised somebody I would post my impressions of Bob Bondurant's School of High Performance Driving, since I am currently there for the four-day Gran Prix course. I personally won't be able to provide any comparisons with other schools, since I haven't been to any others, but one fellow who is there so that his son (a kart racer) can go through the course had taken a Skip Barber course. Generally, the impressions from him and several others is that Bondurant's place has a great advantage in that it is a purpose-built facility, i.e., there's a 1.6 mile road course designed by Bob, and a three-acre flat pavement area that facilitates numerous exercises with plenty of runoff area. Bondurant's road course and the Firebird Raceway road course are connected so that they can be used together as a (I'm guessing 2.25 miles or so) longer road course. The campus is quite nice with well equipped classrooms, etc., etc. There's a rather overweight cat that lives in the parts dept. in the shop, too. Anyway, I had the fortune (or misfortune, depending on your perspective) of scheduling my experience here while the Winston Cup GOBs are duking it out at PIR. This has had several consequences: 1) a two-day specialty class was set up that coincides with the first two days of the four-day course. This specialty course was mostly populated with NASCAR driver's wives. In many ways this was a blessing and a curse. The pace has been pretty hectic and and I haven't been able to keep track of who all of them are, but wives of Ernie Irvan, Bill Elliott, Lake Speed, duh, I can't remember the rest. There were about eight in all (they finished today). 2) Yesterday there was a promotional/endorsement event of some kind during the lunch break. Since the facility is a bit out of town, I've been taking a lunch and eating there. Anyway, a classmate and I are on the patio overlooking the road course and I pointed to the tent by the flagman's stand and said "Look! It's Crystal Barnard!" Sure enough, Crystal (the lunch counter lady from Wings, who does fairly well in the celebrity races) is there with the Country Time Lemonade WC racing team. First, she and Bob do some laps in one of the hotter race-prepared mustangs. Then she and Jeff Purvis, the driver for Country Time, do some laps with her driving. Then Bob takes the Country Time WC car around the course a few times (all of this, of course, with several camera crews catching the whole thing). THEN Crystal takes the WC car for some laps! It was all pretty amazing. Once we had finished lunch we went over to the tent and hung out for a bit. Ernie Irvan was there (looking well and getting about nicely, but has a patch over one eye yet). Bill Elliott showed up later as well as Lake Speed and somebody else I didn't recognize (I'm not that big of a NASCAR fan). So lunch time yesterday was pretty exciting. But back to the actual course stuff. The instructor/student ratio is never worse than 1:3, and this allows great tutorials in the SHO Tauruses driven by the instructors. Everybody piles in a Taurus and the instructor shows you how an exercise is *supposed* to be done, first very slowly, picking up speed each time with much helpful explanation, Q&A, etc., etc. Then everybody piles in the Mustangs (prepared to spec for Bondurant, full cages, modified suspension, stock 302 engines, etc., etc., and unfortunately, crushed on retirement since Ford is not willing to sell modified vehicles for liability reasons) and we do the exercises on our own with the instructors keeping an eye on everybody. Occassionally your instructor signals you over and rides with you for critique, helpful hints, etc. So far we have done (gotta try to remember two days worth of hectic stuff, hope my Alzheimer's doesn't kick in too bad): 1st day. 1) Heel-toe shift practice on a long straight on the 3-acre flat. 2) A throttle steering exercise on some tight circles painted on one end of the 3-acre flat. 3) A collision avoidance/stop exercise on the flat area. Three stoplights hang over three lanes split from one. You approach at up to 40mph and when you're 80 feet from the lights two are switch red and one green. Ya gotta get the green lane without killing any cones. Then the switch to flipping them all red and you have to stop as well as possible. Then it's random; you a get a green lane OR all red and you never know which lane or whether to stop until you're 80 feet from the overhead lights. 4) A handling oval on the 3-acre area with one constant radius and one increasing radius turn. You learn the racing line, straight line and trailing brake technique, and early and late apex corners. I learned a lot on this one and the practice was great. 2nd day (today). 1) The main road course can be split into three independant sections, the far end turning into an oval called the Maricopa Oval. Spent a good part of the morning there doing fast laps practicing the corners and heel and toe shifting. You can feel yourself catching on to all of this. It is really amazing. 2) The rest of the morning was in the skid cars. They take a plain-Jane Taurus with an automatic and set it on a huge piano dolly looking thing with free casters on each corner. The instructor can control hydraulic lifts on the frame that lift the front or rear of the car on the dolly to make the front or rear tires lose grip on the pavement. You can skid these babies at 5mph on dry pavement just like you were on glare ice. My 3-student group included Ernie Irvan's wife and another NASCAR wife who I never did get the name of. They both got queezy during the instructor's demonstration in the skid car, so they went and sat under an adjacent tent while I went out and skidded around. A couple of minutes later the tent was populated with these women all waiting their turn but unwilling to ride in the back while somebody else had their turn in the barrel. It was pretty amusing. The idea is to learn car control in understeer/oversteer situations. This thing VERY clearly demonstrates this. Once my session was done I sat in the back and learned from them driving about sideways and backwards. Ernie's wife (sorry, I'm *really* terrible with names, they were all very nice people) was quite good at this part. Really quick with the steering wheel and never went out of the "imaginary race course" they set up for this exercise. 3) Turn&brake. This is adjacent to the handling oval on the flat area. You get up to 55-60mph on a straight and then have to turn hard and brake. The idea is to get the car stopped while turning and stay within the painted lines. This was a difficult exercise. We did this one two to a car in the Mustangs and swapped places after a few times. I was with a journalist from Japan who didn't like doing the exercise very well, but was like a kid on a Disneyland ride while I was driving. I spun off the corner once and he had a great time during the whole thing. We're buddies now. 4) Lots of time on the road course. We started in the instructors cars, then went to a lead-follow, and then they turned us loose. Instructors ride with you occassionally, and you follow some people and learn from their mistakes. If you're stuck behind somebody slow you can pull in the pit area and wait for a break in the traffic. I did this quite a lot and followed some slow people and some fairly quick people. I got a lot out of this by learning from the other folks, both how-to and how-not-to. One of the NASCAR ladies who I had ridden with previously wound up backwards on one of the turns. All you could see was a big grin under the helmet so she was apparently having a good time, too. So far I'm having a wonderful time and learning a tremendous amount about competition driving. The NASCAR ladies and the other 2-day students are done now, so the track should be less crowded from here on. Tomorrow is apparently nearly all road course time, and the last day (which will be Sunday) is in the Formula Fords. Personally, I'm having a great time horsing the Mustang around (you are assigned a car that you use for the duration of the course). It's not the quickest thing in the universe but is a great teaching tool. I'll try to post again tomorrow, but will definitely give you some scoop on the rest of the course.