HomeCar CultureLifestyleDrag-racing courses announced by Bondurant driving school

Drag-racing courses announced by Bondurant driving school

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A new course to teach “the art of drag racing” has been announced by the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, offering professional drag-racing instruction to the public.

In partnership between Dodge//SRT, the famed Chandler, Arizona, driving school will conduct the classes on July 27 and August 17, with additional classes to be announced. The courses will include both classroom and on-track instruction, and will be limited to 16 students each at a cost of $1,999 per driver.

Students will experience racing on a professional drag-racing strip where the NHRA holds an annual event, behind the wheels of some of the world’s fastest street cars, the school said in a news release. The cars include the 840-horsepower Challenger SRT Demon, SRT Hellcat, Hellcat Widebody and SRT 392.

Bondurant
Dodge SRT Demons will be on the drag strip | Bondurant photo

“We’re thrilled to offer this new drag racing program with our partners at Dodge//SRT,” said Bruce Belser, chief executive of the Bondurant school.  “Drag racing is an adrenaline-filled motorsport that requires a certain set of skills.  Our new course will help drivers of every skill level improve their technique and drop their one-eighth mile time behind the wheel of powerful Dodge//SRT vehicles.”

The drag-racing course is the first addition this year to the school, which has come out of bankruptcy protection under the new ownership of a motorsports-enthusiast investor group, which includes Besler. The driving school was founded in California more than a half-century ago by renowned race driver Bob Bondurant to teach the finer points of performance driving for both track and street. The operation moved to its current purpose-built facility in Chandler in the late 1980s.

Belser said he expects the drag-racing classes to fill quickly, especially since only a limited number of Demons were produced and not many people have had the opportunity to drive them, especially on track. Demon owners have been able to experience their muscle cars on the strip at Bondurant, but this is the first time the course will be opened to the public, with the cars provided by the school.

“Drag racing is the purest form of motorsports and continues to grow in popularity, especially among young enthusiasts,” said Tim Kuniskis, head of passenger cars for Dodge, SRT, Chrysler and Fiat, FCA – North America. “Opening the Bondurant drag school to everyone is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for those performance enthusiasts to drive the record-breaking Challenger SRT Demon, get time behind the wheel of our Dodge//SRT performance car lineup, and learn how to drag race in a controlled environment from world-class instructors.”

The school describes in the news release how the drag-racing course will be conducted:

“Classroom instruction for the full-day school will last approximately two hours and will address the fundamental rules of drag racing, including proper launch, staging technique, reaction time, signals and safety pre- and post-checks. On-track instruction will be under the direction and supervision of a professional Bondurant instructor. Each student will get in-classroom and on-track instruction followed by eight 1/8th mile full passes.”

The 100-acre Bondurant School of High Performance Driving is the only purpose-built driver training facility for performance driving instruction and the largest driver-training center of its kind in the world, according to the school website. Its signature road course, designed by Bob Bondurant, is a 3-mile, 26-turn and 11-multi-configuration track, with the school maintaining more than 100 race-prepped vehicles for instruction.

For more information about the Bondurant school and its new drag-racing classes, visit the school website.

Bob Golfen
Bob Golfen
Bob Golfen is a longtime automotive writer and editor, focusing on new vehicles, collector cars, car culture and the automotive lifestyle. He is the former automotive writer and editor for The Arizona Republic and SPEED.com, the website for the SPEED motorsports channel. He has written free-lance articles for a number of publications, including Autoweek, The New York Times and Barrett-Jackson auction catalogs. A collector car enthusiast with a wide range of knowledge about the old cars that we all love and desire, Bob enjoys tinkering with archaic machinery. His current obsession is a 1962 Porsche 356 Super coupe.

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