Bondurant's School of High Performance Driving - The Art Of Control

While the importance of proper braking and turning to stay on the correct line was apparent on the oval, it became much more critical when the turns went both ways. Here we're coming though a small chicane that leads directly into a mild increasing radius turn at the end of the lake loop. Notice the racing line goes over the curb and will continue across the curb on the upcoming turn to set us up for our exit point. We got progressively faster and more precise throughout the day.

Day three opened with the skid Caddys again, but this time we were taking skid control to a new level. Rather than just correcting oversteer, the goal was to control it and practice an infamous rally maneuver known as the Scandinavian flick to drift a figure eight around the skidpad. Part of the challenge was that our exit points for each curve were on the opposite side of the figure necessitating a big head turn. We'll be perfectly honest; we've never had more fun behind the wheel.

The Bondurant track design was actually inspired by the Grand Prix of Long Beach with more sweeping corners that flow into one another. Consequently, it's also a faster track which necessitates looking further ahead and not being afraid to turn your head.

Cars are always separated out for practice laps, but that's not necessarily how it will be on track days. As an intro to the race start, students grid behind the GTO Pace Car and follow. After he pulls away, we watch for the drop of the flag and drag race down the back straightaway. It's all over by the braking cone of the first corner, however, and it's back to single file with no passing through the turns.

The back straightway of the west track is a fast one; here we're at about 110 mph in Fourth gear getting ready to break and downshift for a sharp 120-degree turn. It's easy to take an off-track excursion if braking and turn-in aren't proper.

We got a little heavy footed early on, and missed our apex a few times on a couple of tight turns, which caused us to push toward the outside of the track and get slapped on the wrist by the Vette's nanny systems-all of which created a messy line and slowed down our laps.