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Hitting the fast track - Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving

Chief Executive, The, July, 2003 by Scott Henjum

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So, what exactly do you learn at Bondurant? You pick up the basics of car control, including the need for total concentration and the physical dynamics of vehicle weight shift--how weight transfers to the rear of a vehicle when you accelerate and shifts to the front when you brake (see sidebar, left).

To get the most out of your high-performance car, you'll master such basics as heel-and-toe downshifting, trail braking and accident avoidance. There's a heavy emphasis on proper cornering techniques to cut your lap times. Students learn how to work a corner to make a "late apex" maneuver that allows you to travel through the corner faster than the "early apex" most novices make.

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Time spent in a "skid car" teaches you how to master over- and under-steer skids when cornering and how to handle a vehicle on ice. "Our students leave here much better drivers," says instructor Kevin Krauss. "They use techniques they learn here out on the street, in everyday driving."

If you get the opportunity to attend the Bondurant School, consider a word of caution: If you show up in your shiny Porsche, Ferrari, Vette, Beamer or Viper, don't let your instructor take the car out on the track "to see what it can do." That is, unless you are planning to replace those low-profile tires. A number of students have taken instructors up on the offer, only to sit in their own passenger seats, mouths agape, as their cars get put through the ringer.

RELATED ARTICLE: Not your typical driver's Ed.

Here are some tips from the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving that you can put to use in your car:

* Sit up straight: Adjust your seat position so you sit upright with your buttocks tucked firmly against the lower back of the seat. Make sure there's enough room between you and the wheel so your arms are comfortably bent. This allows your body to feel what the car is doing.

* Lower those hands: Your high school driver's ed teacher was wrong about the 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock hand positions on the wheel. Bondurant wants those hands at 3 and 9, with thumbs resting on top of the spokes. This allows you to "feel" vehicle input coming up the steering column. You'll get less fatigued, you'll have more strength in an emergency evasive maneuver and you'll have more range of motion to turn.

* Look ahead: Be sure to look well ahead--not at the car in front of you. "You go where you look," says Bob Bondurant, the Hall of Fame racer who founded the school. This also applies when cornering. Look where you want to come out of a corner, not where you are going into it. On the freeway, you should look 10 to 15 car lengths ahead.

* Brake in the corner: This is the classic Bondurant weight-shift mantra. Forget what you've heard about braking first and then accelerating through the corner. When you enter a corner, increase the maximum contact on your front (steering) tires. To accomplish this, slowly ease the break pressure off as you turn the wheel into the first third of the corner. Then, gently apply the gas to transfer the weight to your rear tires to prevent your car from spinning while you exit the corner.

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Hitting the fast track - Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving

Chief Executive, The, July, 2003 by Scott Henjum

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