When Two for the Road faces the LAW

May 19, 2009
Scottsdale Arizona

Every once in a while one gets and opportunity to meet someone that is completely thrilled with what they do in life and Cathy and I met one of those very special people today at our May Phoenix Automotive Press Association meeting. His name is Darren Law and if you’re even remotely familiar with endurance racing, you know of whom I speak. Darren is one of those rare people that knew what he wanted to do from early childhood, and then set out paying his dues to become on of the top drivers in the world. Darren began racing karts at age 11 and after winning several championships he worked his way into full-fledged racing where he continued and continues his winning ways.

It’s important for me to point out here that while doing what Darren and other professional race car drivers do is thrilling and exciting and a serious adrenalin rush, it doesn’t come without years of paying dues to learn the skills required to handle unbelievably powerful machines running at speeds over 150 miles an hour, screaming in and out of hair pin turns during 6, 8 and 24 hour endurance races; races that many times, after all those hours at top speeds, are won by mere seconds.

I’ve had the immense pleasure of spending time behind the wheel of very fast cars on the track at Bondurant and what I learned was that after 20 or 25 laps at speeds that honestly, a professional would chuckle at, I was exhausted from the stress and focus required to try and hit apexes to get in and out of turns at just the right point to maximize speed. It’s impossible to explain just how much focus and concentration it takes to hit those points at just the right moments and at just the right speed. Learning the art of heel-toeing, down-shifting, trail braking and squeezing the accelerator and up-shifting at exactly the right moment takes thousands of miles worth of racing at top speeds to master. It is simply stated an amazing feat. After winning the 2008 American Le Mans series GT2 championship, Darren and the team are off to his first 24 hours of Le Mans which needless to say he’s just a tad excited about.

We also had an opportunity to spend some time with the man that helped give Darren his start in endurance racing and that would be racing legend Bob Bondurant. Bob is recognized internationally as the go to guy on advanced driver training. For over 40 years the Bondurant school has trained over 85,000 students ranging from little old me, to race car drivers throughout the world. He’s also trained celebrities the likes of Paul Newman and Tom Cruise as well as teenagers, police officers and professional drivers. The school is world renowned and I can testify to just how important the skills I learned are. I always considered myself a very good driver until... I took the highway safety course at Bondurant. The things I learned during the course without a doubt make me a better, safer driver and oh by the way, I’d been driving for well over 40 years before I took the course. So if you have a teenager driving, check out the courses offered for teens. You'll more than likely find that you'll want to take it with your teenager.


You can find out a whole lot more about Darren at; http://www.darrenlaw.com/.
Find out more about Bob Bondurant at; http://www.bondurant.com/