Champion racing car driver and top instructor Bob Bondurant dies | WGN Radio 720

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Paradise Valley, Arizona (AP) — Former champion racing driver Bob Bondurant, who opened a high-performance driving school in 1968 and taught many A-list actors the role of cinema, has died. He was 88 years old.

According to his family and the website of the Bondurant Racing School, Bondurant died on Friday in the suburbs of Phoenix in Paradise Valley. The cause of death was not revealed.

According to the website, Bondurant taught stunt driving, competitive driving, police pursuit driving, driver and bodyguard avoidance driving, and other skills. His school has more than 500,000 graduates.

According to the website, among the celebrities who were instructed to drive the road course for the role of the movie were Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Nicolas Cage, Robert Wagner, Tim Allen and Christian Bale. I was there.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Bondurant and his family moved to California at the age of two.

He switched to a car in 1958 and raced a motorcycle on a dirt track as a teenager before racing with the Shelby American, Ferrari and Eagle teams.

Bondurant won 30 of 32 Corvette races from 1961 to 1963, and in 1964 he won the Le Mans GT class in collaboration with American Dan Gurney.

Severely injured in a 1967 accident at a racetrack in Watkins Glen, New York, Bondurant drafted the idea of ​​a high-performance driving school during his recovery.

He opened a school on the Orange County International Raceway in California in early 1968, then moved to Ontario, California, and later to Sonoma, north of San Francisco.

Bondurant relocated his driving school to Phoenix after the 1989 Romaprieta earthquake in California.

He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2003.

Bondurant is survived by his wife, Pat, who is the president and chief executive officer of Bondurant Racing School. She vows to continue her school heritage.

“Bob Bondurant has a global impact on the motorsport industry, and as Bondurant Racing School advances into the future, his legacy will be forever,” said Julie Gise, president of Phoenix Raceway. It will continue. “

Funeral plans were not immediately available on Sunday.

Champion racing car driver and top instructor Bob Bondurant dies | WGN Radio 720

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