The rationale the Bob Bondurant College of Excessive Efficiency Driving did so effectively for thus lengthy was that its championship-winning namesake was so good at exhibiting college students the methods of profitable driving. Because it was based in February of 1968, the varsity says it has helped greater than 500,000 college students from all over the world. They could all want to tip their hats to the founder, Robert Lewis Bondurant, who died Nov. 12 in Paradise Valley, Ariz., on the age of 88.
Not lengthy after he was born in Illinois in 1933, his mother and father moved to Westlake Village, Calif. He obtained his first style of racing when he was 8 years previous when his father took him to midget races. By the point Bondurant was 14 he had his first motorcycle and by 16 he was flat-tracking Indian and Harley-Davidson bikes.
His competitors profession on 4 wheels started at 23 years previous in 1956 behind the wheel of a Morgan Plus 4. He would finally enter fields racing towards different SoCal pilots like Carroll Shelby, Dan Gurney, and Richie Ginther, however after three years of profitable in Corvettes, he switched to racing for Shelby and driving the Cobra. As a part of the migration of U.S. drivers to Europe within the mid-Sixties, he claimed a category victory at Le Mans in 1964 driving Cobra Daytona Coupe with co-driver Dan Gurney, and in 1965, was a part of the driving staff that put the FIA Worldwide Producer’s Championship trophy in Ford’s show case.
After a short, race-winning stint in F1, he moved to the Can-Am sequence and america Highway Racing Championship (USRRC). During a race at Watkins Glen in 1967 within the USRRC, the steering arm on his McLaren Elva Mark II broke. He flipped eight instances within the crash, his crushed toes touchdown him in hospitals and rehab. Whereas recovering, he bought the thought for his driving college, which he opened in 1968 on the Orange County Worldwide Raceway to show “The Bondurant Methodology.”
Paul Newman and Robert Wagner have been a part of the second-ever class, and Bondurant was nonetheless serving to celebrities study the craft when Christian Bale attended got here to coach for his function in Ford vs. Ferrari. Bondurant continued racing, although, returning to Watkins Glen as quickly as 1968 for the USRRC race. Though by no means the identical as earlier than the crash, he would not cling up his helmet till he was 79.
Bondurant’s driving college came to grief in 2018, declaring chapter and briefly closing. New owners bought the school and its belongings, now known as the Radford Racing School, nonetheless positioned in Chandler, Arizona, nonetheless driving Dodge merchandise, and nonetheless led by lots of the pre-bankruptcy instructors. Radford Normal Supervisor Mark Kessler put out a press release studying, partly, “The staff at Radford Racing College is saddened to study of the passing of Bob Bondurant … Bob devoted his life to serving to others develop their driving abilities, each on the road and the monitor, coaching a few of the greatest names in racing, celebrities, skilled athletes, and on a regular basis drivers who would go on to credit score his instructing strategies for conserving them protected behind the wheel.”
The brand new homeowners did not purchase the Bondurant title, nonetheless. Bob Bondurant is survived by his spouse Pat, who stays president and CEO of the Bob Bondurant College of Excessive Efficiency Driving, now doing enterprise because the Bondurant Racing School. There is not any such precise college but, however a splash web page says it can return in 2022.
