Originally posted to rec.autos.sport.misc on 10/29/94.

Here's the day #3 installment of my experiences at the 4-day Gran Prix Road 
Racing course at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving.

First, the trivialities. Since today is Saturday and the GOBs are qualifying 
at PIR, the place was a lot quieter than the last two days. I think Bob and a 
lot of the unbusy staff are at PIR, too. I did find out that the NASCAR ladies 
that were here were all wives of Ford drivers, and their 2-day specialty 
course here was sponsored by Ford (which proves once again, in racing, it's 
who you know). There was a bus load of Ford sales managers, etc. here today 
getting rides on the track and generally getting a tour of the place. 
Ford is one of the major sponsors of the school, along with Goodyear and 
a bunch of others.

Bob's AC Cobra (740 hp, and it certainly sounds and moves like it) was parked 
outside of the garage at lunch and I got some good pictures of it. Amazing
machine. The father of the kart racer that is in our class got a ride in it
with Bob on the road course. Apparently it accelerates like a rocket and
brakes like it has anchors. Very cool car.

Since the two-day specialty people have graduated and gone on to better 
things, the class is a lot smaller and the track a lot less crowded. It also 
makes the setting a little more intimate and the comeraderie between the 
students and between the students and instructors is tighter. This is a very 
good experience and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

So on to today's events:

1) After a short briefing we head out to the track in the Mustangs. Since this 
is day #3 in this car it is getting very familiar. I've got a pretty fair 
handle on the limits of the vehicle, so now it's just how far am I willing to 
go with it. The Maricopa Oval part of the track is being used by another 
class, so we use the Lake Loop and Carousel together, which is probably 80% of 
the complete track, and offers a great workout. Since this is the second time 
we've driven the Mustangs at speed on this layout, I'm working mostly on 
smoothness and refining technique. I can feel the track and the car coming to 
me and it is really great. Since this is in a desert setting and there is 
plenty of gravel trap in the runoff areas, it is very easy to tell when 
somebody gets off the track. A dust cloud rises about 100 feet and there is no 
trouble seeing it from anywhere on the track. During this session everyone who 
gets off the course gets right back on after regrouping themselves and the 
car. After a while I feel like I'm up to a pretty good speed when my 
instructor signals me over. It had seemed like I was the only one on the track 
for a while (plenty of room to practice) and it turned out most of the others 
had been pulled off and taken back over to the skid cars. When I get pulled 
over (after what seemed like an incredibly long run) my instructor wants to 
take me over to the skid car again, too, after a short break for water, air, 
etc. I am soaked with sweat and glad that I took the advice to strip to my 
underwear before putting on the firesuit.
2) More skid car. The break from the road course is just what I needed. Man is 
that exhausting. We spend a while practicing oversteer control in the neutered 
Taurus. It is really a pig, especially on the skid dolly, and my instructor 
has me flooring it at the first sign of skidding just because it responds so 
slowly. We do a lot of ovals, some figure eights, and after watching Mrs. 
Irvan yesterday I'm doing better by slinging the wheel to the locks pronto 
with the skid. Good practice.
3) Back to the track. I need some more water and a little rest. When we went 
to the skid car everybody else was going back to the track, so they're all out 
zooming around in the Mustangs. My instructor checks and there's only 5 or ten 
minutes of track time left before we go back to the classroom, so he leaves it 
up to me whether I want to go back out or not. I'm still kind of beat, so I 
elect to go up in the flagman's tower (which seems big enough for about ten 
people) and just watch everybody else for the remaining few minutes. One of 
the instructors is there managing the flags and the karters Dad is there, too. 
I ask the intructor who's quickest so far. Joey (the karter) is apparently 
doing quite well so I watch him for a few laps. You can learn a lot from other 
people's lines and the time seems well spent. It is a different perpective 
from the tower and from there you can see the entire track. Cool stuff.
4) Back to the classroom for the next briefing. We're going to be running the 
entire course now so they're drilling the new line into us ahead of time. Now 
the straight ends in some S turns that culminate in an elevation drop to a 
blind corner where we'll be entering the Maricopa Oval section of the track. 
They're telling us that this is a tricky section so you have to do it right 
since you've got a lot of speed from the straight. A slight lift on the 
throttle gets you into the first part of the S, then back on the throttle to 
make the next part, then off a little over the hill and back on to make the 
corner into the oval. The run is a little intimidating because if you don't 
make the turn onto the oval there's a gravel trap and then a light pole 
surrounded by a tire barrier. Uhg. We'll be going around with our instructors 
in the Taurus SHOs first, then a quick lead follow while they bring us up to 
speed, then they'll turn us loose for a bit, followed by the usual session 
where the instructor rides along.
5) Back to the track. There are seven students left, three with Johnny 
O'Connell (the IMSA GTS Nissan driver), three with Spence (a cool guy, but I 
don't know what he races), and I'm alone with T.J. Clark (Mickey Thompson off 
road kinda guy, among other things) since the NASCAR ladies are gone. T.J. 
takes me around in the SHO and we go over the details of the new places on the 
track since we're joining the oval. Wow, that S and the drop into the oval are 
wild. Adding throttle going through the turns at that speed is going to take 
some discipline. T.J. is stressing this so he says, "Okay, now watch what 
happens if you *don't* add the throttle..." so next time around we're doing 
full tilt and when we hit the second turn of the S we're sideways in a big way 
at a very uncomfortable rate of speed. Being the competent instructor type, he 
pulls it out smoothly in time for the corner at the bottom of the drop. I 
don't think I'll try not adding throttle. He takes me back to the Mustang and 
we do a lead follow for half a dozen laps or so and by the end we're doing 
full tilt boogie. Following somebody on the right line helps you get around 
well at speed. This gave me the confidence to do it on my own so when he pulls 
off I don't hold back. His advice was to take whatever speed I'm comfortable 
with on the straight since the S is kind of tricky. I was taking it flat out 
during the lead follow so I continue that way. A couple of times around by 
myself at speed and I am truly amazed at how fast you can take that section of 
the track if you do it like they tell you. At the far end of the oval I'm 
getting the trail braking down so I feel like my times are getting pretty 
good.
        After a while T.J. pulls me over for a ride along. I get back up to
speed and he notices that the car is cutting out a bit exiting the tight
corners. "Yeah, it started doing that a few laps ago," I explain, and he
points to the gas gauge. Dead nuts empty. I'm sloshing the remaining fuel
away from the pickup and it's gagging on the corner exits. We go back to the
shop and T.J. fills it for me rather than making me unstrap. After a short
delay we're back on the track and up to speed again. He gives me some
pointers on a few places where I can get a little more speed. Mostly I'm
hitting apexes on the S on the backstretch a little too early. He likes my
speed through the front S and my technique development so far. Just more
finesse, more smoothness, and that only comes from more practice. Cool.
The car feels good, the track feels good, and I feel good.
        I had missed a shift a couple of times so we go back to the pit and
trade places. He can't get it into first gear, and I explain that it just
started doing that part, but the box has always been really stiff, but I'm
used to it by now. We go around a few times and he can't believe I've been
driving it with the shifter so stiff. He misses shifts, too, so we blame it
on the car. I'd rather stay with this one than get used to a new car, so T.J
gets out at the pit area and turns me loose for the remainder of the session.
        The advice is helping. I'm hitting the back S apexes later and
carrying more speed down the backstretch. He's got me turning on the last
corner of the carousel a little earlier and that's helping, too. Wow. Three
days ago I couldn't spell racer and now I'm starting to be one.
        Coming up the straight I see a large dust cloud going up from over the
hill on the nasty S. Yesterday I had seen something similar and it turned out 
to be some farm activity across the highway off the track, so I figure I'll
wait and see. If it's dust, somebody's off the track and not likely to be in
my way anyway, so I forge ahead. Coming over the hill it's obvious somebody
went off the track. There's so much dust I can just make out a Mustang in
there somewhere for the brief moment I glance that way. There's no dirt on
the track, no debris, the off-track car is upright and apparently not against 
anything, so I keep my speed and follow the normal line. On the next lap 
there's an instructor's car down there, the student and the instructor are up 
and about, and the Mustang is up to it's hubs in gravel. A couple more times 
around and they bring the yellow out. I guess this is because of the number of 
people at the crime scene and the fact that they have to get the wrecker down 
there to get it out of the sand. The session ends a little later anyway, so 
the timing wasn't too bad.

We break for lunch. After we park the cars I ask around, "Who had the E-ticket 
ride on the hill?" Yoshi, Japanese journalist partner to the fellow I did the 
brake-and-turn with, is the culprit. No worse for wear, he's taking it quite 
well. Johnny chews him out a bit since apparently that's the second time he's 
spun on the hill. There's a white X painted on the track at the top of the 
hill that is in the middle of the correct line. A physician in our class was 
right behing Yoshi and jokes, "He went right over the X so he was on line, 
except that he was sideways at the time." Wow. I vow to make sure I *always* 
get on the throttle in that turn. It's probably the most difficult and 
scariest section of the track, but I can't think of a better setting in which 
to make these kinds of mistakes.

During lunch Joey and his dad come over to where I'm sitting on the patio. 
Apparently Dad was in the flag tower with the stopwatch out during the last 
session, mostly to see how Joey was progressing. He's pretty excited and going 
on about how Joey and I were getting identical times, and that we were both 
about three seconds faster than everybody else. Cool. That's a pretty good 
reward for me after such an exhausting session.

6) After lunch Johnny spends a long classroom session with us going over a lot 
of things: flags, racing wisdom (some of which was very entertaining), more on 
the track and the line we should be driving and why. He says that this track 
is very busy, much busier than a typical "real" race course. The advantage to 
the track design, though, is that it forces you to keep thinking, and 
particularly to keep thinking ahead, about what you are doing. We're 
apparently done with the Mustangs (damn, just when I was really getting hooked 
up with it), and will be using the Formula Fords for the rest of the day and 
all of tomorrow. This leads into a discussion on the differences between front 
and rear-engined cars and the changes in technique we'll have to make to 
accomodate these differences. As part of this discussion he draws a freeway 
cloverleaf off-ramp on the board and says you can tell what kind of car it was 
by where it crashed on the ramp. A Corvette, Viper, Mustang GT, etc., going 
onto the cloverleaf too fast is going to push into the guardrail close to the 
beginning of the loop. A Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus, etc., is going to make it 
most of the way around until the driver figures out he's going too fast, at 
which point he lets off the gas (or starts braking) and whammo, into the 
guardrail at the end of the loop (he calls this the doctor and lawyer section 
of the cloverleaf).

7) After a briefing on the nuances of the Formula Fords, we're off to the 
paddock for heel-and-toe practice and car familiarization. These cars are a 
lot twitchier than the Mustangs and take a little getting used to. We've been 
warned that the weight and relatively soft springs on the Mustangs delay the 
results of mistakes, i.e., you screw up a corner and you spin further down the 
track, but on these babies you make a mistake and you get instant 
gratification, immediate feedback. They spoke truth. I get sideways once 
turning around for another heel-and-toe run. Gotta stay ahead of these cars or 
you're in trouble.

8) After the paddock session we're back on the Maricopa Oval section of the 
track. The racing line is the same and we're supposed to start with the same 
reference points that we used for the Mustangs as far as where to start 
braking, etc., etc. The FFs accelerate much more quickly and stop better than 
the Mustangs (they're only 900lbs). We run the oval for quite a while and then 
they take us on a couple of lead-follow laps around the entire course in 
preparation for tomorrow.

9) End-of-day debriefing. Tomorrow will be mostly track time, all of which 
will be in the Formula Fords. Secretly I am hoping I can still at least keep 
up with Joey for best lap times (assuming his Dad gets the stopwatch out 
again). Joey's a kart driver and the FFs are closer to a kart than the 
Mustangs so he's probably a little more in his territory now. I had asked him 
whether this course was going to help him with the karting, and apparently the 
goal is not necessarily to get better at karting, but to move onto better 
things, like Indy cars. He's good, I hope he makes it some day.

Will post more on tomorrows session and overall impressions. l8r