Bonduraunt School day

[Damn True]

I can't believe I forgot to do this writeup....spaz.

So my Brother-In-Law who lives in Phoenix and is an Airline pilot for US Airways gave me a day at Bonduraunt for my birthday last year. We had a heck of a time arranging schedules for getting off work, him being home and open seats in the classes. Finally got it all worked out and registered for the one day 'RPM' class on New Years Eve.

Got there right at sunup for the class and the Bonduraunt staff was hard at it getting the courses set up and putting all the cars, and they have an amazing number of cars, in their places.

Vette's lined up for auto-x



I had time before the class started and tooled around the facility seeing what sort of stuff they had on hand.

Caddilac CTS's setup with the hydraulic skid initiator outriggers.



More ZO-6's than I've ever seen in one place (I'd love to take their ZO-6 Experience class)



....and in Yellow too



Bob's got a ZR-1



...actually....he's got two



So the day started with registration, a briefing on the days activities and introduction to the various group leaders. Then some old dude showed up.



Holy Schnikey! That'd Bob Bonduraunt!



They had two of those Solstice GXP racers in the room there. SICK little race cars. I want one!

So my group started out in the carts. Which was....honestly a little boring. They weren't the 125cc shifter carts that they also have there. They were slow 4-stroke Marguay carts. They cut us loose on the track and it seemed like the people who can drive / people who can't drive ratio was about 1:4. The problem was that each of us in the "can" category wound up on the track with 4-5 "cant's". Would have been fun if we'd had a second session with the "cans" and we could have had some fun dicing with each other. Instead we got to go out and dodge rolling chicanes. I didn't take any photos of this bit.

The next session was a set of collision avoidance drills. This was done in Pontiac Solstices. Holy crap what a great little car! They didn't have a GXP, it was just the standard 4-banger which is a little bit coarse. But the fit/finish in the interior was brilliant and the car handles every bit as well as the "roadster standard" Miata. Really enjoyed driving it. The drills were focused on teaching people to avoid a collision at highway speeds without losing control of their own car. Again.....I was dumbstruck by how many people cannot wrap their heads around lifting to weight the front of the vehicle, making a firm steering input and then re-applying the gas. We went round and round at least ten times and some folks just never got it. Which inspired me to be extra cautious when driving back to my brother-in-law's house.

A little personal instruction for one of the other students:



Getting driving tips from a dude that won LeMans......I hope that person really appreciated how freaking cool that is.

Next up was the auto-x portion. For this session we each had our own 2009 Z51 Corvette. Sadly...I got short straw in my group and wound up with an automatic trans......but wait....it has those flappy-paddle things.....and a button that will lock it into paddle shift-mode.....and when it was in paddle shift mode it let me disable the traction control. And, it had a pair of Sparco seats and 5-point harnesses in it. Ok.....this is going to be fun! I let my partner go first so I could get a really good look at the course (we didn't get a walk) during his three runs. The course wasn't very long, but it was pretty technical and it had enough room in a couple of spots to require some heavy braking and in one spot an opportunity for a bit of trail braking. Nice. The first turn was a really long decreasing radius left turn, about 300deg worth. Most people were following the cones and braking it into four distinct turns that they were individually braking and turning for. If you took a wider approach it was one turn and you could stay in the gas for about 3/4 of it and only needed to lift for the tight right hander at the end. Then accelerate into a tight increasing radius turn that could be trail braked into allowing the car to rotate very early and get back in the gas. Most folks were straight line braking for this before making any steering input. This turn led into a 5 cone slalom which set you up for two 90deg rights. Most people again followed the cones and made two brake/turn cycles. Taken with a wide entry it was one fast turn instead of two slow ones. Then accelerate to the finish. I had a bit of an advantage in that I had the ability to disable the TC which the people in the manual cars could not do, but it didn't appear that many of them were attempting the same lines. I did my three runs and wound up having the #1 & #2 FTOD by .5sec. STOKED!!!

I just realized that I didn't take a single photo during the auto-x portion. I really wanted to do well on that and I guess I was focused. Sorry.

So the last session of the day was the open track portion. YEEEHAW!

Firebird Raceway where the Bonduraunt School is located has like 3-4 different road course, plus two kart tracks. For the full on racing school they use the big road course. For these types of events they have a smaller, tighter roughly 1.2 mile road course. It's quite a lot of fun to drive, and you really don't have much of a break anywhere but the speeds aren't all that high. I didn't look at the speedo when I was at the wheel but my partner caught 90mph in a couple of locations. The car was a 2008 Cadillac CTS. No....not the CTS-V. But it has a pretty gutsy 6-cyl with a manual and man....that is one of the best handling big cars I have ever driven. I can see how the CTS-V was able to best the current M5. It really is a fantastic driving car.

All the photos and video below are taken by me in the pax seat while my partner was driving. His lines were a bit messy.

[Damn True]

That's my wife, Kathy in the flagstand.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFdCK8p10No


.....and at the end of the day....



Normally I am not a guy that is starstruck at all. But damn....that's Bob Bonduraunt! He won LeMans. Rad!

Anyway, it was a damn fun day. Pretty darned affordable too. This particular class is only $400. Now you don't get any real instruction to speak of, but I would still recommend it as an introduction to the various types of classes they hold there. Kathy and I are going to visit my brother-in-law for Easter and I plan to take their one of their night-time (lighted track) superkart classes. They have 125cc shifter karts and they run a class 3-4 nights a week.

[UNmolestedTA]

Awesome! This will be one of my future presents.

[CarlC]

Nice True!

About how much seat time did you get?

[Damn True]

3 auto-x laps and probably 30min straight on the track behind the wheel. Equal pax time in both. Then 20 min in the karts and 30-45 min in the solstice.

[monza]

very cool!