HORSEPOWER PLAY & DOLCE VITA IN ARIZONA

http://toursminute.com/Scottsdale
by François de Pouqueville
Researcher: Wallace A. Wyss

 
Arizona is a land of endless skies, wide open space, wild horses and horsepower!
And in the center of it all the good life blossoms in a place accurately named Paradise Valley, in Scottsdale.
 
Like modern cowboys we wanted to come here in Phoenix to take part in the ultimate rodeo: The Bob Bondurant School of High Performance driving.

Founded and run by Bob Bondurant, a legend of auto racing, former champion and winner of many Grand Prix races, this school is open to anybody with a driver's license and a strong passion for the automobile. Every attendee gains a great improvement of his/her driving abilities while living the unique experience of a race car driver.
A superb organization, allowing all students to truly learn to drive purebred 430-hp racing Corvettes and Formula 1 type single-seater racers, under the helm of the most skilled and dedicated team of professional racecar instructors, the course is taught on the 1.6 Mile-15 turn racetrack designed inch-by-inch by Bob Bondurant to recreate the most celebrated turns, chicanes, and straight-aways of Championship Grand Prix racetracks around the world. Going through the 4-day Grand Prix Road Racing class is a unique experience for anyone, just as it is for the many celebrities - race car champions, entertainment and movie stars – who regularly attend this outstanding life-changing education cycle. Once you know about it, you owe it to yourself and to your loved ones to take this class and improve yourself and your skills. You'll become a so much better driver that you could even apply for the SCCA racing license upon graduation! 
 
Nestled within the Gila River Indian community, the Bondurant School grounds are next to the sprawling Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort which offers, together with superb accommodations, exceptional restaurants and services, a beautiful park with swimming pools and waterslide, a 18-holes golf course along its own lazy river, and Aji, the elegant spiritual center and spa offering the world's most authentic Native American spa services.

For the whole family's enjoyment, and after a full day driving hot laps with Bondurant's Corvettes or karts, the nearby Rawhide Western Town is a delightful old frontier town with authentic saloons, shops, an amazingly real old west blacksmith, and all sorts of period entertainment including a startling gun battle performed by stunt-cowboys. With good old live Country music' n dance, its grand steakhouse serves the coolest beers with a great menu of western favorites including a delectable buffalo steak with real pan-fried rattlesnake!
 
A mere half-hour easy drive North of Bondurant racetrack is the rosy ridge overlooking Paradise Valley, and there, hidden in this affluent Scottsdale community is the InterContinental Montelucia Resort, a fabulous hotel openly inspired by none other than Emperor Charles Quint's Alhambra Palace of Granada, Spain. Here, the appartments' verandas overlook the multicolored mosaïcs of seemingly hundreds of chanting fountains, just as in the Generalife Gardens of Andalusia. Impeccable service helps you relax in the cream-colored cabanas around the swimming pools, before indulging in a clay desert wrap at the Joya Spa if you so desire. Later, Italian Chef Claudio Urciuoli will flatter your test buds with his delicate cuisine served in the joyous and airy atmosphere at Prado, the resort's elegant restaurant named after the famed Museum in Madrid.  The fountains of Alhambra, the jewels of Joya, and the art of the Prado, everything here is evocative of a certain 'dolce vita' artfully recreated in Scottsdale's Paradise Valley. 
 
The balmy desert night is slowly receding when a driver picks us up at the hotel for a short ride to the outskirts of town where we join half a dozen balloonist-pilots of Hot Air Expeditions. They are actively filling the huge colorful balloons with hot air from propane burners while we are helped into the large wicker-baskets and soon the inflated spheres slowly rise together in the still cold air of dawn. Softly climbing past the gentle hills we could almost touch the saguaros cacti and, as the sun also rises (Question: did Hemingway ever fly a hot air balloon?), our small flock of aeronauts silently soars over the Sonoran desert. The scenery is so breathtaking that everyone on board the small craft keeps mostly silent, trying to absorb so much beauty. Our pilot begins to point out various details in the large tapestry we are traveling above. He is audibly happy to share the surprising sight of a small herd of javelinas (a indigenous wild midget boar), a group of wild burros, an occasional owl, a trotting coyote, or a red fox, all unperturbed by our stealthy appoach. Like foreign planets, the other balloons seem to recede in the distance and, after close to two hours of flight we gently touch down in the middle of almost nowhere: the radio-equipped white chase vans are already awaiting our descent. As the balloon's air is released, a couple of table clothed tables are quickly set up right there in the desert and a delicious impromptu gourmet breakfast is served to all passengers with the popping sound of cool Champagne bottles being opened - a 'welcome back to earth' tradition dating back more than 100 years - and we all feel like Phileas Fogg having accomplished a 2-hour round-the-world exploit.
 
The Sonoran desert is also the stage of wild horses' cavalcades. The Fort Mc Dowell Adventures' spectacular trail ride through the Verde River is a one of a kind experience. After saddling up at The Stables, the wranglers escort you into the Fort Mc Dowell Yavapai Nation, home of the Yavapai, then down into the Verde River valley where you may see wild mustangs, bald eagles and other wildlife. After crossing the river several times you enter a mesquite forest and eventually climb back up into the Sonoran Desert.
 
Back at Bondurant, the 430-horse powered Corvette's V8 are also cutting through the hot air at tremendous speed around the Carousel and Maricopa Oval turns, and we all feel a bit like Bob Bondurant himself when he was beating everybody else to the checkered flag. The school promises a maximum time spent behind the wheel and they definitely keep that promise, to the point that we are loosing about 6 oz of weight every couple of hours. The course is physically demanding and it makes you feel great too, like a good workout.
 
For relaxation, recreation, cultural experience, and fabulous shopping, Scottsdale has an answer at all times.

The main Phoenix Art Museum, a newish building right on Central Ave. had, at the time of our visit, a show on a Taos, New Mexico man who lived among Native Indians and painted for over 40 years.

The Heard Museum was our second Museum visit. This one had a focus on the Native Indians of Arizona, with many beautiful displays of Navajo, Zuni and Hopi jewelry. If you are planning on buying Native Jewelry in Arizona, visiting this museum first is recommended to see the classic designs and to peruse their bookstore which has many fine books on Native silver and turquoise jewelry.
 
Another of Scottsdale's oasis of excellence is the Fairmont Princess Hotel & Resort, a grand hotel adjacent to two golf courses and comprising besides the main hotel several clusters of 'casitas', small hamlets of mediterranean houses with just four luxury one-room suites, and interspersed by small tree lined plazas with fountains, ponds, waterfalls, or small swimming pools. A round-the-clock shuttle service by electric golf-carts is available to the guests for commuting through the vast property. As a result, each suite is exceptionally quiet and restful. But for even more relaxation, the Willow Stream Spa at Fairmont offers wonderful Balance Body Treatment and many other services in a marbored setting with private waterfalls, agoras, and refreshments rooms, not unlike the Roman Therms.
The array of restaurants at the Fairmont Princess includes the famous Bourbon Steak House, a beautiful place with ample patios, and an exemplary staff serving the highest quality broiled or grilled meats, fish or sea food with a distinctive southwestern flavor. An impressive and spectacular wine cellar can be seen through high glass walls, and its treasures are served in like-high stemmed glasses.
 
The 4th day of the Grand Prix Road Racing class at Bondurant is the culmination of the course: each driver is issued a magnificent Formula-1 type monoplace race car. These are fantastic mid-engine open-wheeled bolides capable of tremendous 0-60 mph under 4 seconds accelerations! Light-weight and equipped with no-tread slick tires, they are the essence of race-car. The fact that Bondurant entrusts you with this high-performance racer proves that you actually have progressed much farther that you even thought possible and you are already the better driver you wanted to be. You will remember this day for the rest of your life – guaranteed! As Bondurant-soon-to-be-Graduate they fit you into this amazing car, you flip the switches: fuel-pump, ignition, and it roars into life - an ecstatic feeling! They lead you to the pit lane, wave the green flag: off you go pouncing onto the track...at once full concentration takes over - you don't hear anything anymore, everything is in slow-motion and silent – Maricopa, look left–brake, toe-heel downshift 2nd, corner, apex, exit, up-shift 3rd, 4th , pedal-to-the-metal ...They call it the Star Mazda, and it goes like a shooting-star!  Within a few laps, you have adjusted your speed and take each lap faster and faster. Like Bob Bondurant, you begin to learn each inch of the race-track, you anticipate every move, you gain your automatisms, and the car responds better and better to your smooth yet firm inputs - you are racing.

Much later, after the checkered flag has you reluctantly return 'your' #8 to the pits, you remember that you did redline the bi-rotor engine to 9000 rpm in the straightaway and that just before braking at the chicane you were probably going very close to 150...  These memories will stay with you, part of a wonderful dream-come-true feeling blended with spectacular images of one of the best weeks of your life: only in Arizona!

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