The Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving was an American performance

driving school ''Driving School'' is a docusoap and fly on the wall documentary that was broadcast on BBC1 in the summer of 1997, which followed a group of learner drivers around Bristol and South Wales. The series was made on a reduced budget but shown in p ...

located in Chandler, Arizona at the

Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park Firebird Motorsports Park (formerly Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park and Firebird International Raceway) is a 450-acre (180 ha) motorsport racing complex, located in Chandler, Arizona, United States, about southeast of downtown Phoenix. Hist ...

. At the time of its founding, the school was the largest purpose-built driving school in the world. It featured a 15-turn, 1.6-mile road course, an eight-acre asphalt pad for advanced training with more than 100 race-prepared vehicles.

Bob Bondurant Robert Lewis Bondurant (April 27, 1933 – November 12, 2021) was an American racecar driver who raced for the Shelby American, Ferrari, and Eagle teams. Bondurant was one of the most famous drivers to emerge from the Southern California road ...

's copyrighted Bondurant Method taught competition driving, police pursuit driving, evasive driving for

chauffeur A chauffeur () is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or a limousine. Initially, such drivers were often personal employees of the vehicle owner, but this has changed to s ...

s and

bodyguard A bodyguard (or close protection officer/operative) is a type of security guard, government law enforcement officer, or servicemember who protects an very important person, important person or group of people, such as high-ranking public offic ...

s, stunt driving, and other courses. The school graduated over 500,000 drivers since its opening in 1968. Many

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

drivers were trained at Bondurant's school for road course training, along with many celebrity actors for driving scenes, including

Paul Newman Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and activist. He was the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Paul Newman, numerous awards ...

and

Robert Wagner Robert John Wagner Jr. (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor. He is known for starring in the television shows ''It Takes a Thief (1968 TV series), It Takes a Thief'' (1968–1970), ''Switch (American TV series), Switch'' (1975–1978), ...

for the movie "

Winning Winning may refer to: * Victory Film * Winning (film), ''Winning'' (film), a 1969 movie starring Paul Newman * ''Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman'', a 2015 documentary by Adam Carolla and Nate Adams Music * ''Winning'', an album by Ten Fo ...

History

The school was founded in 1968 by World Champion and ten-time hall of fame inductee

, and was located at the

Orange County International Raceway Orange County International Raceway was a combined -mile US dragstrip and 2-mile road course, plus a motocross track, located in Irvine, California adjacent to the Interstate 5 ( I-5) Santa Ana Freeway. Under a lease agreement with the Irvine Comp ...

. Bondurant initially approached

Porsche Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche (; see below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in luxury, high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Th ...

for funding and support, but his request was turned down due to the uncertainty of the endeavor. Bob then approached

Datsun Datsun (, ) was a Japanese automobile manufacturer brand owned by Nissan. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in Marc ...

, which agreed to support his plans. The starting lineup of cars included

240Zs, 510s, 2000 convertibles, a Lola T70 Can-Am car, and a

Formula Vee Formula Vee (Formula Fau Vee in Germany) or Formula Volkswagen is a open wheel, single-seater junior motor racing formula, with relatively low costs in comparison to Formula Ford. On the international stage, Niki Lauda, Emerson Fittipaldi ...

. By 1970, the school relocated to the nearby

Ontario Motor Speedway Ontario Motor Speedway was a motorsport venue located in Ontario, California. It was the first and only automobile racing facility built to accommodate major races sanctioned by all of the four dominant racing sanctioning bodies: United States Au ...

. Noting how the school increased Datsun's profile,

began supplying Bondurant with Porsche 911s and Porsche 914s. In 1973, with the school gaining popularity, Bondurant moved the operation to a track of his own, Sears Point International Raceway (now

Infineon Raceway Sonoma Raceway (originally known as Sears Point Raceway, Golden State International Raceway and Infineon Technologies, Infineon Raceway) is a road course and dragstrip located at Sears Point in the southern Sonoma Mountains of Sonoma County, Cal ...

) near Sonoma, CA. In 1976, the president of

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...

convinced Bondurant to abandon Datsun's backing and work with Ford, with whom he had won the World Championship during his racing years. Ford offered Bondurant a full sponsorship of cars, parts, and marketing until 2003. In 1989, Bondurant was invited to Firebird Raceway (now known as

) in Chandler, AZ to consider an offer which promised the chance to build the world's first purpose-built driver training facility. However, land limitations only allowed a downsized version of his dream training facility. In late 2018, citing financial troubles and infrastructural damage, the school and company were forced into Chapter 11 protection. As a result, the school's assets were sold off in 2019.

References

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External links

Bondurant Racing School
Educational institutions established in 1968 Racing schools