{"id":49501,"date":"2021-03-22T11:09:39","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T15:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=49501"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:21:32","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:21:32","slug":"bondurant-high-performance-driving-school-evolves-into-radford-racing-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2021\/03\/bondurant-high-performance-driving-school-evolves-into-radford-racing-school.html","title":{"rendered":"Bondurant High Performance Driving School  Evolves into Radford Racing School"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The storied Bondurant High Performance Driving School is writing a new chapter. After purchasing the school in May 2019, completing an extensive multi-million-dollar renovation and revamping its curriculum, the school\u2019s owners \u2013 a small group of auto enthusiasts, collectors and graduates of the school \u2013 have renamed the facility the Radford Racing School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The renaming marks the school\u2019s new\nassociation with the team behind the Radford brand, a name legendary among auto\nenthusiasts for its coachbuilding legacy. That\nteam includes next-generation owners English television celebrity Ant Anstead,\nF1 champion Jenson Button, car designer Mark Stubbs, and business partner Roger\nBehle. The four are reviving the Radford story into a modern lifestyle brand\nthat celebrates auto design and performance, high-performing driving and\nracing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By taking on a heritage brand with forward\nmomentum, owners of the school expect to continue to evolve it into an experience\ndestination for international auto enthusiasts, everyday drivers, new drivers,\nracers, celebrities, and influencers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Radford Racing School is the Official\nHigh Performance Driving School of Dodge\/\/SRT<sup>\u00ae<\/sup>. Continuing as the school\u2019s\nprimary sponsors, Dodge\/\/SRT provides a fleet of vehicles for driving\ninstruction. The drag racing course features the 840-horsepower Dodge\nChallenger SRT&nbsp;Demon, while other high-performance vehicles, including the\nChallenger SRT Hellcat, Charger SRT Hellcat and Durango SRT are just some of\nthe options available for the on-track performance driving experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/track-experience\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"New Dodge\/\/SRT owners are among the thousands of students who come to the school to learn how to achieve optimum performance of high-performance vehicles in a controlled environment.  (opens in a new tab)\">New Dodge\/\/SRT owners are among the thousands of students who come to the school to learn how to achieve optimum performance of high-performance vehicles in a controlled environment. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\naddition to the Dodge\/\/SRT vehicles, the school features Ligier JS F4 open\nwheel vehicles, vintage Dodge Vipers, go karts, and cars used in its special\nforces, police, and military training. The Radford team will now build and test\nvehicles on the Radford Racing School track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve rapidly progressed in enhancing and reintroducing this facility as the world\u2019s premier experience for the next generation of drivers,\u201d said Mike Kessler, general manager at the school, who notes recent changes toward that goal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Renovation and expansion, including the first resurfacing of the main track in 30 years, enhancements to the event center, visitor center, gift shop, student lounge, classrooms, skills pad and eagle&#8217;s nest viewing platform<\/li><li>Diversification of the courses offered by adding open wheel and drag racing courses, with new formula racing courses in development<\/li><li>Breaking new ground as the first school of its kind to offer professional drag racing instruction to the public and the chance to earn an NHRA Drag License<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo\ncap off these moves that broaden the appeal of the school while retaining its\nlegendary reputation, we\u2019re announcing the name change,\u201d said Kessler. He adds the new brand retains\nthe school\u2019s nod to auto legends. Incorporating racing into the moniker represents\nthe brand\u2019s extension into the racing world, positioning the facility as a\nplace for speed, professional race car instruction and experiences, in addition\nto world-class driving instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe racetrack is the perfect environment for\nbuilding and testing Radford-built cars,\u201d said Anstead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFor a car to be truly great, it has\nto feel as good as it looks. It has to possess both style and substance in\nequal measures, and you can only achieve both through extensive testing and\nimprovement and the track is the perfect place for this,\u201d said Button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Radford school and brand teams will collaborate on expanding the Radford brand into experiences, merchandise, branded content (a TV show is in the works), associations with celebrities and influencers, and more.  For more information about the school, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radfordracingschool.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"RadfordRacingSchool.com (opens in a new tab)\">RadfordRacingSchool.com<\/a> or call 480-403-7600. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The storied Bondurant High Performance Driving School is writing a new chapter. After purchasing the school in May 2019, completing an extensive multi-million-dollar renovation and revamping its curriculum, the school\u2019s owners \u2013 a small group of auto enthusiasts, collectors and graduates of the school \u2013 have renamed the facility the Radford Racing School. The renaming marks the school\u2019s new association with the team behind the Radford brand, a name legendary among auto enthusiasts for its coachbuilding legacy. That team includes next-generation owners English television celebrity Ant Anstead, F1 champion Jenson [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":49667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[575],"tags":[625,2976],"class_list":["post-49501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-bondurant","tag-radford"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/radford-racing-school-feature.png","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49501"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49668,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49501\/revisions\/49668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}