Attended Bondurant – a Review
06-05-2009, 10:18 AM
#1
3rd Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Chicago
Posts: 757
Attended Bondurant – a Review
Late last month (May) I attended the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, taking their 4-day Grand Prix Road Racing course. I’ll say up front that the experience was nothing short of fantastic! So I wanted to just sum up my experience for those who might be curious and encourage those who might be tempted to follow suit.
I went there with two basic goals in mind, to form a solid foundation of car control skills that I could further develop and also to increase confidence. Both goals were more than met. On top of that I got to meet great folks and drive some great cars.
I count myself extremely fortunate to have been paired with Pete Miller, my instructor, who gets my personal vote for instructor of the year (sorry Danny, you’re great too!). He’s just an outstanding instructor and one seriously amazing driver. He’s also pretty clearly on the same basic page as the other instructors, which makes the entire experience really feel like a school, not just a few days of driving around. In fact, I came away with a sense of having been systematically trained at car control. They start out with basic skills and quickly work up a ladder of skills and more challenging environments. By the end you’re on the full course (Bob Bondurant designed it himself, and it’s a pretty demanding run) using all your new-found or recently-refined skills.
The cars the Bondurant School is now using for their Grand Prix courses are the latest gen Corvettes (C6 with Z51 suspension package) and the Formula Mazda. I spent 2-1/2 days in the Corvette. At the end of the 3rd day you swap over to get acquainted with the Formula Mazda, and then you spend the entire 4th day in it. You get a bunch of seat time every day.
The C6 Corvette is a fine machine, very well suited (IMHO) to learning to drive. It can do plenty on track, and it can get you out of many of the more stupid things you may do in it. And then there’s the Mazda. This is a proper race car. The Formula Mazda is an open-wheeled, single seat, F-1 style race car, that just flat rocks! What a fun car to drive. I loved it! I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to climb into one again, but I can say it’s already been too long.
Last word. If you look into it, you’ll see that the 4-day school is not cheap. For most, this would be hard to justify (to oneself or one’s spouse). I justified it in the following way. I had spent a couple of summer’s tooling around road race courses in HPDE events, and I had no idea what I was doing, just trying to go fast. I knew that I was mostly clueless, but more importantly I knew that I was building up bad habits. I needed a firm foundation, a really solid grasp of the basics as well as insight and instruction on advanced techniques, and I needed to be able to do this in a timely manner. Also, it was very important to me that I felt I could trust the source of instruction. That pretty much narrowed the field to about three different schools. As it turns out, they were all pretty comparable in terms of cost (comparing 3-day classes to 3-day classes, Bondurant is the only one to offer a 4-day class). What tipped the scales in favor of Bondurant was that they were the only ones that had the dedicated facilities and equipment to execute their training.
So what do you get for your bucks in this regard? First the class qualifies you to apply for your SCCA license, which I viewed as an added bonus but not the reason I took the class. You get multiple dedicated tracks (to focus on specific car control skills, one at a time, before you put them together). You get a skid pad with skid car (again, specific skill development, in this case control during slides). You get your own cars (no sharing) fully developed and tuned (they worked on dialing in the new Mazdas for months before letting them loose to students). You get multiple sources of expertise (the mechanics who maintained all these were just as willing to answer questions and offer insight as the instructors). You get multiple driving/ride-along experiences. For example, you get to drive the Corvette and the Formula Mazda and the skid car, but you also get ride-alongs with your instructor in the Cadillac CTS…and then there’s the van-tour. OMG! The van-tour is a freak show on wheels, or as one of the drivers said, “It’s a totally stock cargo van, but a highly modified driver.”
That brings me to the most important justification. I have spent twice this amount of money on modifying my car for both handling and aesthetics. Last year I witnessed a guy kick the living crap out of me in a near-stock Mustang of the same year as my own. Driver mods. To me that’s more important than the next upgrade I was planning. I thought, I could use the money to make my car “be badass” or I could use the money to learn to “drive badass.” So what’s more important? That you have something that’s great, or that you can use greatly whatever you happen to have? It came down to bragging rights or skills? I chose the latter.
Best,
-j
I went there with two basic goals in mind, to form a solid foundation of car control skills that I could further develop and also to increase confidence. Both goals were more than met. On top of that I got to meet great folks and drive some great cars.
I count myself extremely fortunate to have been paired with Pete Miller, my instructor, who gets my personal vote for instructor of the year (sorry Danny, you’re great too!). He’s just an outstanding instructor and one seriously amazing driver. He’s also pretty clearly on the same basic page as the other instructors, which makes the entire experience really feel like a school, not just a few days of driving around. In fact, I came away with a sense of having been systematically trained at car control. They start out with basic skills and quickly work up a ladder of skills and more challenging environments. By the end you’re on the full course (Bob Bondurant designed it himself, and it’s a pretty demanding run) using all your new-found or recently-refined skills.
The cars the Bondurant School is now using for their Grand Prix courses are the latest gen Corvettes (C6 with Z51 suspension package) and the Formula Mazda. I spent 2-1/2 days in the Corvette. At the end of the 3rd day you swap over to get acquainted with the Formula Mazda, and then you spend the entire 4th day in it. You get a bunch of seat time every day.
The C6 Corvette is a fine machine, very well suited (IMHO) to learning to drive. It can do plenty on track, and it can get you out of many of the more stupid things you may do in it. And then there’s the Mazda. This is a proper race car. The Formula Mazda is an open-wheeled, single seat, F-1 style race car, that just flat rocks! What a fun car to drive. I loved it! I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to climb into one again, but I can say it’s already been too long.
Last word. If you look into it, you’ll see that the 4-day school is not cheap. For most, this would be hard to justify (to oneself or one’s spouse). I justified it in the following way. I had spent a couple of summer’s tooling around road race courses in HPDE events, and I had no idea what I was doing, just trying to go fast. I knew that I was mostly clueless, but more importantly I knew that I was building up bad habits. I needed a firm foundation, a really solid grasp of the basics as well as insight and instruction on advanced techniques, and I needed to be able to do this in a timely manner. Also, it was very important to me that I felt I could trust the source of instruction. That pretty much narrowed the field to about three different schools. As it turns out, they were all pretty comparable in terms of cost (comparing 3-day classes to 3-day classes, Bondurant is the only one to offer a 4-day class). What tipped the scales in favor of Bondurant was that they were the only ones that had the dedicated facilities and equipment to execute their training.
So what do you get for your bucks in this regard? First the class qualifies you to apply for your SCCA license, which I viewed as an added bonus but not the reason I took the class. You get multiple dedicated tracks (to focus on specific car control skills, one at a time, before you put them together). You get a skid pad with skid car (again, specific skill development, in this case control during slides). You get your own cars (no sharing) fully developed and tuned (they worked on dialing in the new Mazdas for months before letting them loose to students). You get multiple sources of expertise (the mechanics who maintained all these were just as willing to answer questions and offer insight as the instructors). You get multiple driving/ride-along experiences. For example, you get to drive the Corvette and the Formula Mazda and the skid car, but you also get ride-alongs with your instructor in the Cadillac CTS…and then there’s the van-tour. OMG! The van-tour is a freak show on wheels, or as one of the drivers said, “It’s a totally stock cargo van, but a highly modified driver.”
That brings me to the most important justification. I have spent twice this amount of money on modifying my car for both handling and aesthetics. Last year I witnessed a guy kick the living crap out of me in a near-stock Mustang of the same year as my own. Driver mods. To me that’s more important than the next upgrade I was planning. I thought, I could use the money to make my car “be badass” or I could use the money to learn to “drive badass.” So what’s more important? That you have something that’s great, or that you can use greatly whatever you happen to have? It came down to bragging rights or skills? I chose the latter.
Best,
-j
06-05-2009, 12:16 PM
#3
5th Gear Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: College Station, TX
Posts: 2,179
Me and my dad are planning on attending next summer. They have a height and weight limit for the Formula Mazda cars, though and we are both over the weight limit and I am on the edge of the height limit, so we're looking at it as an incentive to lose some weight. Should be well worth it IMO. Plus, my car will be lighter going around the track as well, lol. I didn't realize they had switched to the C6 Z51's, when my dad talked to them a few months ago, they were still using the C5 Z06's. Should be good for him as he daily drives a Z51 C6, lol.
06-05-2009, 02:34 PM
#5
4th Gear Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Harrisburg PA
Posts: 1,778
Wow, you have my envy. Someday I will attend one of these schools. The other one (dont' know if you looked into them) that does have their own facilities is Spring Mountain outside Vegas. I've heard fantastic reports on their schools also and they also use Corvettes (including a ZR1).
One of my buddies has an ex Boundurant Cobra. Its a great track car - cage, fuel cell, full suspension upgrades, etc. And...its street legal to boot.
So how do you like the corvette? Personally I find it a very easy car to drive at speed, predictable, amzaing power, like you say - it can cover up for a lot of mistakes.
One of my buddies has an ex Boundurant Cobra. Its a great track car - cage, fuel cell, full suspension upgrades, etc. And...its street legal to boot.
So how do you like the corvette? Personally I find it a very easy car to drive at speed, predictable, amzaing power, like you say - it can cover up for a lot of mistakes.
06-05-2009, 06:01 PM
#8
3rd Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Chicago
Posts: 757
Hey Texotic,
Yeah, the Mazda's are not big-folk friendly, but it can be done. In fact, Pete is one big dude! At 6'8" and some 230 lbs or so, it's a bit funny to see him climb in to the cockpit...then he kicks your butt for laughing. The real trouble you might have are your feet. We had a couple of other very tall guys there with big feet (size 12) who just couldn't get enough clearance in the new foot well (something to do with the way the redesigned the front suspension).
Apparently they switch their cars (not the Formulas) very frequently. I thought I heard them say something on the order of every 6 months, but I kept thinking that can't be true. Anyway, my car had a lot of miles on it from their perspective (6K), so you know they are turning over cars fairly frequently these days.
Argonaut,
I did enjoy the Corvette, and you summed it up pretty well. The car is just really easy to drive, very forgiving. My only complaint was the surprising amount of noise you get from the targa top. I wouldn't want to pay that kind of money only to hear constant loud squeaking and rattling. From a performance perspective, I don't care, but from a "hey baby, want to take a ride?" it would be embarrassing.
Timothyrw,
The biggest thing I learned was how to properly trail brake the car to maximize grip. My worst bad-habits all revolved around braking technique. Either I was jabbing the brake at the moment of heel-toe shifting, just generally braking too hard too late, and/or letting off the brake too abruptly. All wrong, all upsetting the car's balance. Pete had a great expression the first time he caught me doing it. "Do you know what it takes to go deep and hard into a corner? A big set of *****. That's it." His point was that there's no skill in what I was doing. I wasn't controlling the car by communicating with it, I was just hoping to go fast. Also, I wasn't doing a good job of tying together brake and throttle with steering. I was ok with unwinding the steering wheel with increased throttle on corner exit, but I had no clue what I was doing with the wheel mid-corner or during trail braking. Now I'm bringing it together. I've still got a long way to go, but I can now identify when I'm doing something wrong and not getting the most out of the car. I can communicate much better with the car to know what she needs.
Looking through my notes there are a ton of other habits I began braking, but those were some of the bigger ones.
Best,
-j
Yeah, the Mazda's are not big-folk friendly, but it can be done. In fact, Pete is one big dude! At 6'8" and some 230 lbs or so, it's a bit funny to see him climb in to the cockpit...then he kicks your butt for laughing. The real trouble you might have are your feet. We had a couple of other very tall guys there with big feet (size 12) who just couldn't get enough clearance in the new foot well (something to do with the way the redesigned the front suspension).
Apparently they switch their cars (not the Formulas) very frequently. I thought I heard them say something on the order of every 6 months, but I kept thinking that can't be true. Anyway, my car had a lot of miles on it from their perspective (6K), so you know they are turning over cars fairly frequently these days.
Argonaut,
I did enjoy the Corvette, and you summed it up pretty well. The car is just really easy to drive, very forgiving. My only complaint was the surprising amount of noise you get from the targa top. I wouldn't want to pay that kind of money only to hear constant loud squeaking and rattling. From a performance perspective, I don't care, but from a "hey baby, want to take a ride?" it would be embarrassing.
Timothyrw,
The biggest thing I learned was how to properly trail brake the car to maximize grip. My worst bad-habits all revolved around braking technique. Either I was jabbing the brake at the moment of heel-toe shifting, just generally braking too hard too late, and/or letting off the brake too abruptly. All wrong, all upsetting the car's balance. Pete had a great expression the first time he caught me doing it. "Do you know what it takes to go deep and hard into a corner? A big set of *****. That's it." His point was that there's no skill in what I was doing. I wasn't controlling the car by communicating with it, I was just hoping to go fast. Also, I wasn't doing a good job of tying together brake and throttle with steering. I was ok with unwinding the steering wheel with increased throttle on corner exit, but I had no clue what I was doing with the wheel mid-corner or during trail braking. Now I'm bringing it together. I've still got a long way to go, but I can now identify when I'm doing something wrong and not getting the most out of the car. I can communicate much better with the car to know what she needs.
Looking through my notes there are a ton of other habits I began braking, but those were some of the bigger ones.
Best,
-j
