Day Three
Full Course After classroom discussion, the instructors take all of the students around the full 1.6-mile course, re-emphasizing certain areas of improvement and ways to incorporate the Maricopa Oval into the rhythm set the previous day. Students are cut loose again for the rest of the day, and with a few precious minutes left of our on-track time, we're left to practice starts and restarts. The instructors in the CTSs first demonstrate this by drag racing each other into the corners before carloads of cheering students. Next, the students strap into their C5s and drag race into Turn 1, vying for position while still remembering the insurance deductible on the C5s.
Perspective: Scott Parker
After having been to several open track days, two years' worth of autocrossing, and only a few days of actual instruction, I found the Bondurant 3-day Grand Prix Road Racing course to be just what I needed. Finally, some real hands on teaching, where the instructor rides along in the car to see what you are doing wrong and shows you how to do it right! I found our instructor, Tim, in particular, to be very encouraging and helpful-though I could easily say the same about all of Bondurant's crew. For me, I had been through most of the basic car control drills before-like the emergency lane-change and braking exercises-but that is not to say I couldn't use the practice. Heel-toe downshifting was something I had no problem with initially, given the C5's perfect pedal position, but actually struggled with on the third day on the road course. Skid control was a skill in need of practice, but not at all begrudgingly, and oversteer is hard and dangerous to practice without the high-tech gadgets Bondurant employs in its skid cars-and a large chunk of open asphalt. I could have spent all day drifting around those circles. It's clear why Bondurant keeps the C5's Active Handling on permanently, but we sure would have had fun drifting on the road course (and hopefully not parking them in the kitty litter!).
Coming into this course, I had a good grasp of increasing the front contact patch leading into turns, finding the best line, hitting the apex, exiting smoothly, using all of the track, and applying smooth inputs all around. Between my prior knowledge and the instruction on the previous days, I felt I had all the tools I needed by the time we hit the track. The funny part about road racing, though, is that you can have all the mechanics, and it doesn't mean a thing if you don't practice to develop a feel for the car and the track. The key was being patient and getting into a rhythm. Since one turn leads to another and so on, coming in too hot to one turn could easily screw up the whole lap. For example, Turn 11 was easy to get off the mark, following the fast back section of the full course, and would quickly throw you off for the low-speed Turn 12. It was extremely easy to come in too hot on Turn 11 and miss the apex, which is also the turn-in point for Turn 12, because it is so close. Another tricky turn was number 4, despite having practiced it separately as part of the Maricopa Oval. When running the full course, you can get up to Third gear before hitting this turn, and since it is such a long, sweeping turn, you need only apply enough brakes to get back down into Second; however, your natural instinct is to overbrake and early apex, which ultimately means you exit the corner with much less speed before that fast back stretch. If you are carrying the right amount of speed, though, you shouldn't be able to cut in early, and should be forced to the middle initially before hitting the apex. Trail braking is important in this turn, and this was one point Tim stressed during my ride-along.
Numerous classroom sessions allowed students plenty of time to absorb the material. | 
The emergency lane-change course. |
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