(09:44:21 May 28, 2004)
Drifting Taught Here: Get the drift from the young, hip, 71-year-old Bob Bondurant

By STEVEN COLE SMITH


AS AMERICA LOOKS FOR A FAMILIAR FACE to match with the new Japanese-import motorsport of drifting, we turn to 71-year-old Bob Bondurant? Yep, that Bob Bondurant, head of the well-regarded driving school, former F1 driver, longtime legend, and a man who recognizes an opportunity.

Drifting, Bondurant says, “is going to be around. It’s been around for 14 years, in Japan, where it originated. My grandson and I went to watch a demonstration with some of the Japanese champions, and I thought, ‘Wow. This is really fun.’”

Grandson James, 25, just returned from Japan, where he attended a two-day drift school. “He’s the first American to be invited, and it’s an invitation-only class,” Bondurant says. James will be teaching at the school, as will several other instructors, such as veteran Bondurant teacher Les Betchner. “We love it,” Betchner says. “We instructors get to teach what we’ve always done after all the students have left for the day.” Ah ha!

The Phoenix-based school has a variety of classes, ranging from law enforcement training to a four-day road racing school, but Bondurant figured there was room for one more: this two-day drifting school. But what to drive?

Not long ago Bondurant ended his longtime relationship with Ford and signed up with General Motors. With Pontiac the first U.S. manufacturer to back drifting, Bondurant is using new Pontiac GTOs for the drifting school. The cars are essentially stock GTOs, with the six-speed manual transmission and the beefy 5.7-liter, 350-hp V8. As the school progresses, the GTOs may be beefed up where necessary, perhaps with different emergency brake levers and roll cages.

“You can drift the car so easily because of the torque. Great acceleration, the car handles, doesn’t push hardly at all. The car feels right. If you want to drift more, you add more power,” Bondurant says. “But you can’t just plant your foot all the way into the gas, or you’ll spin out.”



Yes, so we learned, in an abbreviated, one-day Bondurant drift school, as he and his instructors fine-tune the curriculum. At the moment, prices haven’t been firmed up, but expect about $1,000 a day.

The school features time on the road course to get the feel of the GTO, plus a session in a skid car, which uses outboard wheels controlled by the instructor who can remove traction from the rear wheels at the touch of a lever. The skid cars allow you to drift without burning rubber.

But Bondurant is well aware that burning rubber is a critical part of drifting, and there’s no shortage. We start by doing extended figure-8s around a couple of pylons, on a wet track.

On paper, drifting is easy: Approach, say, a right-hand corner, and you crank the steering wheel a bit to the left, then to the right, and power around the corner sideways. Or you can use the emergency brake to help get the rear to rotate. On wet pavement it’s easier, but those rare times we accomplish a proper drift, it’s more coincidence than talent. By the end of the session though, we’re managing some semblance of lurid, sideways figure-8s.

Did I mention we started on a brand-new set of P225/50R-17 Goodyear Eagles? By the end of the day, belts are showing. But that’s drifting. “Goodyear is very interested in drifting,” Bondurant allows. Gee, really?

The GTO makes for a splendid drifter, but seems a bit out of place in the almost all-Japanese drift world. Indeed, Pontiac’s presence in professional drifting may seem odd until you think about it. Drifting requires a rear-wheel-drive vehicle, and that eliminates some American manufacturers right there. But with the Australian-built GTO, Pontiac has a drifting entry. Pontiac pulled out of NASCAR in 2003 and moved a little of that money to the Grand-Am road racing series—immediately rewarded with a win in the Rolex 24 Hour of Daytona—and to pro drifting, with Rhys Millen behind the wheel.

As for Bondurant, drifting may not be quite as new as you’d expect. “It’s just a different name for what we were doing, because we’ve been powersliding for years. When I raced the Cobras, the only way to go fast was in a four-wheel drift.

“Drifting teaches car control and throttle control,” Bondurant adds. “And the way they lay the tracks out, usually the most you can do is run into a pylon, so it’s pretty safe. It’s a lot of fun, but you learn a lot, too.”
Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, Phoenix, (800) 842-7723, bondurant.com