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Famous car-race school in bankruptcy with $3.5M in debt BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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he Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving – a halfcentury-old East Valley landmark – has skidded into federal bankruptcy court with $3.5 million in debts. The school last week won permission from the judge in the case to hire an expert in restructuring distressed companies to rescue it from a sea of red ink – which it blamed partly on the loss of a lucrative military training contract, sporadic payments from two struggling auto manufacturers and the loss of a line of popular racing cars. Located at Wild Horse Pass near Chandler, the school has been both a fun mecca for nearly 500,000 students who range from
go-kart and amateur racing enthusiasts to teens just beginning to learn how to drive to military and law enforcement personnel. The school employs 31 fulltime and two part-time people. “Both national and international students attend the Bondurant School on a regular basis and learn competition driving, police pursuit driving, evasive driving, and stunt driving, among other types of high-performance driving and racing,” the school said in bankruptcy filings, noting it also taught “recreational high-performance driving to individuals and corporate groups.” Robert L. Bondurant, a world champion racer, founded the school in 1968 in Orange County, California, after a near-death accident at Watkins Glen, New York, when
a steering arm on his McLaren MARK II CanAm snapped at 150 mph. Before relocating to the East Valley in 1990, his students included the late actors and racing enthusiasts Jim Garner and Paul Newman – drawn partly by Bondurant’s own successful racing career. He was named in 1959 Corvette Driver of the Year. In 1964, he and friend Dan Gurney won the GT Class at Le Mans in France and a year later won seven of his 10 races in Shelby Cobras and Daytonas to deliver to Ford and Shelby American the World Manufacturer’s Championship for Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the international governing body of motorsport. He and Gurney comprise the See
BONDURANT on page 10
Local women help charity care for the smallest citizens BY COTY DOLORES MIRANDA AFN Contributor
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rizona Needy Newborns, with chapters in Ahwatukee and Mesa, brought the holiday season in early as members and community guests joined together for the annual Christmas Stocking Stuffer last weekend. They prepared more than scores of holiday stockings for distribution to various hospitals, clinics and homeless shelters throughout Maricopa County and the state. Each stocking was lovingly prepared by the volunteers, who selected the contents from the tables of washcloths, soaps, blankets, nightgowns, hats and booties, bibs and toys, flannel positioning tools and other items that will be delivered by Dec. 15. The event was both fun and successful for the volunteers of Arizona Needy Newborns, a year-round operation whose constant care many hospitals and agencies depend on to help newborns and premature infants – and prepare bereavement burial kits for the little ones who don’t make it. Arizona Needy Newborns was organized approximately 20 years ago as a chapter of the national organization, Newborns in Need. In 2017, in order to help enable their work
(Kimberly Carrillo/AFN Staff Photographer)
On a recent Saturday, Alice Days of Ahwatukee joined other women from the community and throughout the East Valley in preparing stockings filled with items for newborns whose parents can’t care for them properly on their own.
to be more Arizona-centric, the chapter dissolved and was reborn as Arizona Needy Newborns. The group comprises mainly women, many of whom have been a part of the organization
for up to 20 years. They are a dedicated lot, putting their hands to the task of knitting, sewing or collecting items that can be assemSee
STOCKINGSon page 16