I’ve stormed down the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans, taken laps at Sebring, and clipped apexes at Lime Rock, Virginia International Raceway, and Road America. Almost all of this heroic driving was in… minivans. As an automotive magazine art director, the job of piloting a Town & Country around raceways—at lofty speeds of 25 or 35 mph—while a photographer hangs out the open hatch, clicking away at a pretty car behind, usually falls to me. Directions inevitably crackle over the radio: “Let’s follow the racing line for a couple laps.” Back in the paddock, my boss strolls over with a cocked eyebrow, claps me on the shoulder, and quietly says “Todd, that was not the racing line. But nice try!”

Eventually, the boss man decided I needed some professional instruction, so I headed to Chandler, Arizona, just a few miles from the Phoenix airport, for the two-day High Performance Driving course at Radford Racing School. Radford is the former Bondurant Racing School, and while the name and ownership have changed, the curriculum still is firmly based on the instructional philosophy that Bob Bondurant originally implemented in 1968. Some of the older instructors worked for decades under Bondurant’s guidance and are very proud of that heritage. From the moment you enter the classroom for orientation, you feel like you’re in the absolute best hands.

Radford offers programs for all levels of drivers and aspiring racers alike. I was placed in the Performance Street Driving class, which is about 75 percent aimed at street driving, with the rest dedicated to track-driving basics. Radford also offers programs for advanced racers, Formula 4/open wheel, drag racing, and even karting and teen driving instruction.

Like every driving school, Radford begins instruction in the classroom. My classmates were two amateur racers refreshing their skills and a mother-and-daughter team. Mom had taken the same course before and now wanted her daughter to benefit from the same training. Classes are kept small to retain a 3:1 student-to-instructor ratio. After a brief history of the school from chief instructor Danny Bullock, we were given the outline of our course: car control and vehicle dynamics training, accident avoidance and safety techniques, and track driving fundamentals. About 80 percent of the course is spent behind the wheel, out on the track. First, though, we learned some academic basics.

Performance driving, we learned, is all about weight management. Acceleration shifts weight to the back of the car; braking moves it to the front. Simple, but key to everything we’d be doing. Also essential: Always be looking ahead—a longer distance in front of you, not just at the hood of the car. Several of our on-track exercises were built to practice these two concepts. For example, the slalom helped us learn to keep our weight balance even, while the “go, lift, squeeze” exercise helped us look far ahead without automatically slamming hard on the brakes. The point is that even in a full accident-avoidance situation, looking ahead will have you braking and turning earlier to avoid the crash.

With the preliminaries done, it was time to get fitted for a helmet and head out to the course. Radford partners with Dodge SRT, so we were given Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcats. I chose to drive a manual transmission, which put me in a maroon 392 Scat Pack edition Challenger instead. I really appreciated that I was in the same car for the entire school, so I could set all the seating and other adjustments to my liking and have them dialed in every time I got in.

First up were the braking exercises. For the first few, the objective was not to touch the brakes at all. The paddock was lined with cones, making a three-lane roadway scenario. Above each lane was an instructor-controlled traffic light. Red and green. Our challenge was to accelerate to a set speed, which increased after each stage was complete. As we approached the point where the three-lane split emerged, the instructor would light only one path green. The driver was to lift, abruptly turn into the only available path, hit the gas again and drive through. This obviously got harder as the speed increased with each pass, but it really gets you in touch with the vehicle’s weight balance. Avoidance, without braking.

Then came some exercises employing that middle pedal. Cones were rearranged and we set off at the same three traffic lights, this time applying the brakes after the lane switch to stop within a predetermined “cone box” built on one side or the other. This, too, was a level-up challenge as the approaching speed increased. Initial exercises were done without initiating a full-on ABS stop.

This graduated to the final task of the morning, hurtling the Challenger toward a line of cones, with a braking point marked. Success was measured here in being able to stop the car with the nose just at the cone line. I really got a feel for how the car’s weight shifts, and the brake pedal pressure needed. The last few runs were full anti-lock pedal mashes as we sped toward the cone wall. It was both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.

The afternoon of Day One was for drifting. This was the only time we used a car other than the one assigned to us for our course. This unique Challenger was set up with wheels attached to a metal frame built outside the car. These were controlled by a computer with switches and levers on a control box inside the vehicle. This way, the instructor could adjust the amount of “slidability” the car would have.

I was fairly intimidated by this exercise, imagining myself in infinite 360 spins all over the paddock. As I got behind the wheel, instructor Spencer Buckman took me through the apex points where I was to slide and control by opposite steering through a figure-eight setup. My nervousness faded quickly as I slid the car around the paddock. The instructor explained how the different settings he was applying were changing the performance of the car as we modified the direction and speed. Damn, that was a lot of fun. Drifting distilled is merely weight transfer control. Who knew?

Day Two: After a bit more classroom briefing, we headed out to the 1.6-mile raceway. Spencer gave us a track tour in a Charger SRT, carefully explaining the art of corner apexes and the all-important racing line. Then we got to put our new cornering knowledge, and the skills we’d practiced the day before, to use on the Maricopa Oval. It was a perfect space to lap and test two corners, finding the apex point and accelerating out of the turn as we continued to the next.

Finally, I had learned the elusive racing line and was gaining confidence as I picked up speed working this section of track for an hour. Stops to evaluate were encouraged, as were moments to just catch your breath. Spencer would often jump in the car with us, sometimes taking the wheel or riding along as a passenger and providing encouraging feedback.  

Then we did a lead-follow exercise on the entire raceway, all 15 turns of it, at a controlled speed. What an exciting experience to just take lap after lap in the Arizona sun in a great performance car with fresh skills.

My program at Radford culminated in the slalom. Back on the paddock, an autocross course was laid out. Spencer took us on practice runs through the tight series of turns, first in a leisurely manner, and then at full chat, flicking the SRT Charger here and there effortlessly. The first few student-driven laps were practice. Getting a good feel for the layout. The corners. The braking points. Gradually building up speed.

Then, the instructors’ stopwatches came out. Timed runs. I’d done well after I’d settled down in the practice sessions, but being timed brought out the competitor in me. It was a challenge to stay focused and not try to manhandle the Dodge around the course. I couldn’t find a smooth path through a hairpin corner: It was either too much brake on the approach or… not nearly enough. Both slowed me down. Focus. The younger woman of the family pair in my class had it on lock. She continuously made great times, shaving a few seconds off every run. Kudos, miss.

The slalom was a great aggregator for all we’d been taught. Our course was not really about racing, but simply making us better road drivers. Valuable skills, whether you’re a teen or a seasoned racer.

Radford was an exciting, super-informative experience, one every driver should have. Once home, I was proud to apply my gold “High Performance Driving Graduate” sticker to the window of my Focus ST.  A shiny reminder of two days spent meeting great people and the unadulterated fun I had on that raceway in the desert, with not a single minivan in sight.

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The post How Radford Racing School Sharpens Your Driving Skills appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Arizona drag-racing fans were dealt a huge blow when news broke last month that Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Maricopa County would be closing in 2023 to make room for expansion of Interstate 10, which runs parallel to its boat-racing course and its NHRA drag strip.

Due to its close proximity to the drag strip, speculation arose that Radford Racing School, which took up the reins of the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving next door to Wild Horse, would suffer the same fate.

We’re happy to inform you that Radford will not be affected by the closing of Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park. We spoke to Mike Kessler, the general manager of Radford Racing School, who tells us that the school will continue to educate drivers at the facility and that the 1.6-mile course that has sculpted racers’ talents for decades will still be in use. Kessler will be meeting with the Gila River Indian Community later this week to learn more about the plans that will bring new construction near Radford, but Kessler told us the school has heard that nothing should change its lease, which lasts for seven more years, and that the racing school “will be operating and conducting business as usual.”

Of course, this news is still bittersweet. The closing of Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park means that Arizona drag racers and fans will now have to venture to Tucson Dragway, more than 100 miles to the southeast, to find the nearest straight-line action. As much as we hate to see the drag strip go—it’s much harder to build a new one than it is to keep an existing one running—at least there’s some solace that drivers can still get behind the wheel at Radford for years to come.

The post Rest easy, Radford Racing School isn’t going anywhere appeared first on Hagerty Media.

“It’s just kicking the apex, really.”

Brian Murray makes riding a supermoto — leg-out — sound so simple. We are a group 20 or so dudes (“dude” being the optimal descriptor for the type of person who shows up to SoCal Supermoto) sitting on folding chairs inside an office trailer, tucked in a corner of the Adams Motorsports Park paddock. The air contains some slight tension that will be broken once everyone fully suits up in riding gear and rolls out on track for the first time. Brian can feel it, too, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. The whiteboard behind him, on which instructors normally post homework in the form of tips to remember, is completely blank.

Instead we’re given our homework verbally, and it is fairly simple: three bullet points to keep in mind once we pull our helmets on. The third one is less of a tip and more of recurring mantra that at first garnered a collective chuckle from the peanut gallery as we sat in our leather and plastic shells: Don’t crash.

As the day went on and everyone got more comfortable with the track, racing line, bikes, and each other, it became clear that not crashing required real focus. Especially when the dirt sectioned open up. But we’ll get to that later.

We geared up. Boots, leathers, back protectors, gloves, and, of course, helmets. Each rider hopped onto one of the 25 Suzuki DRZ400SM motorcycles prepared by the small SoCal Supermoto crew. All were relatively basic setups and close to factory-condition, with Dunlop Q4 tires on the 17-inch front and rear wheels. The suspension adjustments were just about maxed out on rebound and compression in an attempt to stiffen up the chassis, and a couple small pieces of billet aluminum replaced the factory-fit rubber vibration dampers for a more direct steering feel. Otherwise these are the same $7500 bikes that Suzuki dealers have been selling since 2005.

Our first on-track session, at medium speed, focused on learning the racing line and, well, not crashing. A bonus lesson for me was realizing just how slick the painted curbing is on this course. After blowing the entry on one of the hairpins—because I was already trying to carry speed on the unfamiliar track—the bike tried its best to climb up onto the white and red edge of the track before nearly instantly shifting right back to the pavement, inducing a slide on the front tire. One of the fun things about a supermoto bike is the riding position and how it allows you to react and handle situations exactly like this. The big, wide handlebars slow down all your movements and inputs, while the leg-out position puts your whole body on top of the bike rather than hanging off the side. The result is a ton of feedback, and you still have leverage and weight to move around should the bike start to feel out of order.

With 15 minutes of medium-speed riding under our belts, everyone’s nerves started to calm a bit. Brian explained to the group what our remaining laps that day could teach us. He moved from the “don’t crash” direction to focusing on what he calls “free speed.” It sounds unhinged, but in truth it’s a delicate combination of proper line choice, body position, and transitions between corners. One of the big takeaways from listening to Brian early in the day was his warning about simply imitating what faster riders look like they’re doing. Naturally, many of us are guilty of doing our best to copy the Rossi or Marquez riding position, albeit without the perfectly set up bike, experience, mental gameplan, attitude, or MotoGP-spec tires. It’s a recipe for failure, Brian says. It’s the difference between winning Instagram and winning races. Do you want photos that make you look badass or lap times that make you a badass?

With each classroom and on-track session we got carefully measured amounts of guidance. It was so subtle that it took me a week before some of what I had learned fully set in and I realized sessions that felt like empty riding were in fact perfectly set up. It became clear that the team had been doing this school over a decade. The teaching was not obvious. A joke here, point there, eye contact while talking about something in particular all added up to near individual guidance if you paid attention. It takes energy to pay attention though, and even on a relatively small track and lower speeds energy disappears fast. Luckily right when the class was starting to feel the energy drain, a large delivery of pizza arrived. The people rejoiced.

One of the key items to true supermoto racing and events is the addition of a dirt section. These are off-road machines fitted with road race wheels and tires after all. The Adams Motorsports track has a tidy two-turn dirt section that was opened up for the afternoon. This detour cuts off a big sweeping right hand corner and instead guides riders into two hardpack berm corners before a nice measured launch across a tabletop jump–if you are so brave.

The addition of dirt required another acclimation session. A morning of what felt like road racing dirtbikes suddenly turned to an afternoon of dirt racing dirtbikes. So many road racers get comfortable using the rear brake minimally–and sometimes not at all–and we found out quickly who those riders were on what the SoCal team calls the “berm of destiny.” The hardpack dirt has no tolerance for front brake usage; the front end will disappear before you can even react if you let your brain go on autopilot during the dirt section.

Brian gave advice on the dirt that was really simple: just go slow. I knew I was guilty of going too fast in the slow sections. He pointed out the two hairpin corners and enlightened all of us that they were 5mph corners. Ride the slow parts slow and the fast parts fast. The guy with the lap record at this kart track goes slower than I do in those corners, yet is seconds a lap faster than me. Chase speed in the right places.

It was tips like this that added up to an awesome day of riding, learning, and just fun on track. It wasn’t til the end of the day that I truly understood all the knowledge that was imparted. Brian encouraged us take these two session and remember what got all of us into motorcycles in the first place: The fun of it. He pointed out that riding at 80% pace is actually pretty easy and is a whole lot safer than chasing the last tenth of a second. I took that advice, went out and just kicked apexes–and was faster than I’d been when I arrived to boot.

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