Bondurant High Performance Driving School is no more. But this is happy news, believe it or not, because the newly revitalized Radford Coachbuilders and Dodge have completely rebuilt and renewed the hallowed high-performance driving school to form Radford Racing School.
But with a Formula 1 world champion on the roster, they can’t just toss a bucket of paint and slap on some chrome and call their cars custom. “The racetrack is the perfect environment for building and testing Radford-built cars,” says Ant Anstead, and that’s where Bondurant comes in.
Founded in 1968 by Bob Bondurant, Radford Racing School is a purpose-built driver training facility for performance enthusiasts and the largest driver training center of its kind. Located in Chandler, Arizona, Radford’s reconfigurable track just received its most extensive makeover in 30 years. This new beginning had to be done right, and at North America’s premier performance driving school, the main attraction has to be as world-class as the name and education.
“We’ve rapidly progressed in enhancing and reintroducing this facility as the world’s premier experience for the next generation of drivers,” said Mike Kessler, general manager of Radford Racing School, who notes extensive renovation of facilities, rethinking of the school’s course offerings, as well as professional drag racing instruction.
Radford Racing School is no one-trick pony: You want your teen to learn advanced car control? Honestly, you really do, and Radford has the course for that. Want the open-wheel experience but feeling non-committal about four days of Grand Prix school? Radford has developed a curriculum that can take a complete novice and put them in an open-wheel formula race car right off the street. Just bought a Dodge SRT Hellcat? Dodge is happy to teach you how to drive it safely, and Radford Racing School just happens to be the location of that driving instruction. What about earning your NHRA 9-second drag racing license? You can do that at Radford Racing School, too, and behind the wheel of the 840-horsepower Challenger SRT Demon, no less.
Photos courtesy of Radford Racing School