What sort of lap-time improvement can a 20-year-old racing hopeful expect to see after attending one of the country’s best-known racing schools? To find out,

C/D sent me to Bob Bondurant’s four-day Grand Prix Road Racing School near Phoenix.

But before leaving Michigan for Arizona, I drove my 1993 Ford Probe GT as fast as I could around a 1.7-mile handling track at a local proving ground. The track has 13 turns and a half-mile straightaway.

My inexperience proved that driving at a car’s limit around a sweeping corner at 90 mph is intimidating. Three laps were recorded and averaged, and my time worked out to 1 minute and 29.1 seconds, at an average speed of 68.7 mph. I’d seen a

C/D test driver in a 2000 Toyota Celica GT-S run the course in 1 minute and 21.1 seconds, at 75.5 mph. Definitely some room for improvement.

The cost of the four-day course was $3775. For that hefty sum, I would get instruction in both a modified Mustang and an open-wheel Formula Ford race car. The first 15 hours of seat time are in a Mustang GT, modified with Eibach springs, Monroe shocks and struts, Cobra racing brakes, racing seats, and four-point racing belts, all the work of NASCAR team owner and carbuilder Jack Roush. The stock engine of this 3500-pound pony car produces 215 horsepower. I would also spend five hours in a small, open-wheel Formula Ford race car. Although its engine makes just 110 horsepower, it only has to pull an 1100-pound car around, so its power-to-weight ratio is in Chevrolet Corvette territory.

To get a jump on the summer Arizona sun, 30 of us students—teeny-bopper girls, elderly guys harboring pacemakers, novices, near-pros, sundry car nuts—met at 6:30 a.m. and were given a one-hour primer on how the school operates. We did a walking tour of the facilities, followed by a rapid ride in a van over the 3.5-acre asphalt pad (visualize a big empty parking lot) and Bondurant’s racetrack where we’d be driving. The track is 1.6 miles long, with 15 turns and a quarter-mile straightaway.

We were split into different classes. My class spent the next hour learning about car control and how to determine the correct driving line around the track. At 9 o’clock, we were strapped into the Mustangs. We spent an hour learning heel-and-toe downshifting and driving the correct line.

That afternoon, we practiced an accident-avoidance maneuver—the point of which is to teach you to look well up the road. Later, we drove Mustangs around a simple oval, working on driving the proper line. Then we spent more time refining the heel-and-toe trick. The day ended with 10 minutes of classroom instruction.

School reopened at 6:30 the next morning, and an hour later we ventured out to the Maricopa oval, slightly larger than the one we practiced on a day earlier. Later we learned braking procedures and drove Bondurant’s skid cars, which loop and spin around, simulating a sliding car, with the driver learning how to correct massive oversteer and understeer at a safe 25 mph.

The third morning we did hard laps in the Mustangs over the 1.6-mile track, which included a stomach-sinking 80-mph curve over a hill. That afternoon, we got into the Formula Fords for the first time. Since seats in these little single-place race cars aren’t adjustable, cars that fit our height were selected for us. It’s strange, getting into a reclining position in the narrow cockpit for the first time, stretching to reach the pedals and the steering wheel. We practiced heel-and-toe downshifting and adjusted to the

Formula Ford’s sudden oversteer.

Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/car/02q1/can_a_driving_school_improve_your_times_at_the_racetrack_-car_news