Bondurant Z06 Experience?

[OLDFLM72]

My beautiful bride surprised me yesterday with a great idea for my upcoming 40th birthday... a one-day performance driving course at Bondurant!

She chose the "Z06 Experience" for my birthday and I agree!

Wanted to know what your thoughts were or if you had any other suggestions?

V/R,
Ty

[XcYZ]

Wanted to know what your thoughts were or if you had any other suggestions?

V/R,
Ty

Yeah, you suck. :D You have a great wife! I'm looking forward to hearing your report from the track day. :thumbsup:

[mdprovee]

Report and picture!

[BC69]

Make sure you don't have to return the favor with a day at Tiffany's! ;)


That sounds awesome!


Have fun.

Tim

[OLDFLM72]

Birthday/Track Day is 18 April... the big "40"!!!

[1970cuda]

I have done it twice and it is a blast. They let you ring the cars out but still keep you line. You will not forget it. Bring sun screen! What is funny is that the Mustang driving school is above the Z06 experience because they don't have any ride control to save your rear when you get stupid. Some times you can get the instructors to take you out and have them turn off all of the electronic controls and have them slide the car around a little or a lot!!!!

[Speedster]

Congrats Ty. Must have a pretty cool bride there...

Enjoy yourself and get some video footage !!!

[69Nova]

Your so lucky. I want something like that for turning 40....... only 19 more years to go. :lol:

[OLDFLM72]

[QUOTE=Speedster] Congrats Ty. Must have a pretty cool bride there... [QUOTE]

She is pretty cool!!! Did I mention that she's 26? (c:]
She got me in with her "tractorbeam of hotness!" LOL

[Van B]

She is pretty cool!!! Did I mention that she's 26? (c:]
She got me in with her "tractorbeam of hotness!" LOL

Now you're just bragging.

[Scotch]

I just got back from doing the Z06 Experience there and you will love it. There's not much better than driving the snot out of someone else's Z06~!!

But, I went for the 2-day Z06 Experience. If your wife REALLY loved you...:D


LOL!!!

Enjoy it - you'll learn a lot and have a great time. Bondurant RULES.

~Scotch~

[Damn True]

I can't believe I forgot to do this writeup....spaz.

So my Brother-In-Law who lives in Phoenix and is an Airline pilot for US Airways gave me a day at Bonduraunt for my birthday last year. We had a heck of a time arranging schedules for getting off work, him being home and open seats in the classes. Finally got it all worked out and registered for the one day 'RPM' class on New Years Eve.

Got there right at sunup for the class and the Bonduraunt staff was hard at it getting the courses set up and putting all the cars, and they have an amazing number of cars, in their places.

Vette's lined up for auto-x

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3775.jpg

I had time before the class started and tooled around the facility seeing what sort of stuff they had on hand.

Caddilac CTS's setup with the hydraulic skid initiator outriggers.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3777.jpg

More ZO-6's than I've ever seen in one place (I'd love to take their ZO-6 Experience class)

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3785.jpg

....and in Yellow too

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3779.jpg

Bob's got a ZR-1

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3780.jpg

[Damn True]

...actually....he's got two

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3781.jpg

So the day started with registration, a briefing on the days activities and introduction to the various group leaders. Then some old dude showed up.

Holy Schnikey! That'd Bob Bonduraunt!

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3782.jpg

They had two of those Solstice GXP racers in the room there. SICK little race cars. I want one!

So my group started out in the carts. Which was....honestly a little boring. They weren't the 125cc shifter carts that they also have there. They were slow 4-stroke Marguay carts. They cut us loose on the track and it seemed like the people who can drive / people who can't drive ratio was about 1:4. The problem was that each of us in the "can" category wound up on the track with 4-5 "cant's". Would have been fun if we'd had a second session with the "cans" and we could have had some fun dicing with each other. Instead we got to go out and dodge rolling chicanes. I didn't take any photos of this bit.

The next session was a set of collision avoidance drills. This was done in Pontiac Solstices. Holy crap what a great little car! They didn't have a GXP, it was just the standard 4-banger which is a little bit coarse. But the fit/finish in the interior was brilliant and the car handles every bit as well as the "roadster standard" Miata. Really enjoyed driving it. The drills were focused on teaching people to avoid a collision at highway speeds without losing control of their own car. Again.....I was dumbstruck by how many people cannot wrap their heads around lifting to weight the front of the vehicle, making a firm steering input and then re-applying the gas. We went round and round at least ten times and some folks just never got it. Which inspired me to be extra cautious when driving back to my brother-in-law's house.

A little personal instruction for one of the other students:

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3784.jpg

Getting driving tips from a dude that won LeMans......I hope that person really appreciated how freaking cool that is.

Next up was the auto-x portion. For this session we each had our own 2009 Z51 Corvette. Sadly...I got short straw in my group and wound up with an automatic trans......but wait....it has those flappy-paddle things.....and a button that will lock it into paddle shift-mode.....and when it was in paddle shift mode it let me disable the traction control. And, it had a pair of Sparco seats and 5-point harnesses in it. Ok.....this is going to be fun! I let my partner go first so I could get a really good look at the course (we didn't get a walk) during his three runs. The course wasn't very long, but it was pretty technical and it had enough room in a couple of spots to require some heavy braking and in one spot an opportunity for a bit of trail braking. Nice. The first turn was a really long decreasing radius left turn, about 300deg worth. Most people were following the cones and braking it into four distinct turns that they were individually braking and turning for. If you took a wider approach it was one turn and you could stay in the gas for about 3/4 of it and only needed to lift for the tight right hander at the end. Then accelerate into a tight increasing radius turn that could be trail braked into allowing the car to rotate very early and get back in the gas. Most folks were straight line braking for this before making any steering input. This turn led into a 5 cone slalom which set you up for two 90deg rights. Most people again followed the cones and made two brake/turn cycles. Taken with a wide entry it was one fast turn instead of two slow ones. Then accelerate to the finish. I had a bit of an advantage in that I had the ability to disable the TC which the people in the manual cars could not do, but it didn't appear that many of them were attempting the same lines. I did my three runs and wound up having the #1 & #2 FTOD by .5sec. STOKED!!!

I just realized that I didn't take a single photo during the auto-x portion. I really wanted to do well on that and I guess I was focused. Sorry.

[Damn True]

So the last session of the day was the open track portion. YEEEHAW!

Firebird Raceway where the Bonduraunt School is located has like 3-4 different road course, plus two kart tracks. For the full on racing school they use the big road course. For these types of events they have a smaller, tighter roughly 1.2 mile road course. It's quite a lot of fun to drive, and you really don't have much of a break anywhere but the speeds aren't all that high. I didn't look at the speedo when I was at the wheel but my partner caught 90mph in a couple of locations. The car was a 2008 Cadillac CTS. No....not the CTS-V. But it has a pretty gutsy 6-cyl with a manual and man....that is one of the best handling big cars I have ever driven. I can see how the CTS-V was able to best the current M5. It really is a fantastic driving car.

All the photos and video below are taken by me in the pax seat while my partner was driving. His lines were a bit messy.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3792.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3793.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3786.jpg

[Damn True]

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3788.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3789.jpg

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3790.jpg

That's my wife, Kathy in the flagstand.

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3794.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFdCK8p10No
qFdCK8p10No

[Damn True]

.....and at the end of the day....

http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/damn_true/CIMG3796.jpg

Normally I am not a guy that is starstruck at all. But damn....that's Bob Bonduraunt! He won LeMans. Rad!

Anyway, it was a damn fun day. Pretty darned affordable too. This particular class is only $400. Now you don't get any real instruction to speak of, but I would still recommend it as an introduction to the various types of classes they hold there. Kathy and I are going to visit my brother-in-law for Easter and I plan to take their one of their night-time (lighted track) superkart classes. They have 125cc shifter karts and they run a class 3-4 nights a week.