After more than a year of preparation, the inaugural weekend of the Bondurant Championship Race Series flew by in a blur of RPMs, exhaust, and tire smoke. On Friday, September 25th, Alan Rudolph, Series Director and manager of the Bondurant SuperKart School greeted and welcomed the participants, and outlined the schedule for the weekend. Larry Pond, Race Director for the ASA Racing-sanctioned event reviewed the conduct he expected of the drivers, emphasized the instructional nature of the Bondurant Series, and encouraged good, clean competition.

After each practice session, instructors Alan Rudolph, Mike McGovern, and Craig Meintzer met with the drivers to give them feedback on their lines through the nine-turn course. The instructors were also able to offer additional insight during on-track ridealongs in the Cadillac CTS sedans that are used to teach students at the Bondurant School. In Saturday’s morning practice session, the drivers hit the track hard and made clear their intentions to push the limit in every one of the course's corners. Although two drivers spun, there were no collisions. During qualifying, the participants each seemed to favor a strategy of working on particular corners throughout the session, and then aggresively pursuing the pole position for a three-lap stretch. In the end, Jamie Slone secured P1 with a lap time of 1:00.295, followed closely by Phil De La O and JD Breen.

At race time, the field leapt at the wave of the green flag and negotiated the first turn successfully, but on the following series of turns, Matt Maddox was unable to get his car slowed down in time and ended up in the dirt just off the track. Though the car was undamaged, it couldn't be refired and was pulled back in to the pits. After four yellow-flag laps, race officials took the collars off and the field flew down the main straightaway. Phil De La O in P2 got a huge jump on the restart, closing rapidly on Slone who admitted later that he "fell asleep at the wheel." The talented teenager De La O showed that he wasn't afraid to mix it up in difficult corners, though Slone was able ultimately to stay ahead of him. In the end, the top three spots were claimed by Slone, De La O, and Breen.

On Sunday, September 27th the drivers returned to their rotary-powered Formula Mazdas for the second race of the weekend, and immediately displayed confidence gained as a result of the previous two days of practice and racing. With temperatures in the high 80s during the morning practice session, the FM cars ran strong and gripped the track well; by the estimates of Bondurant instructors drivers completed laps under the one-minute mark.

The early-afternoon qualifying session saw drivers pushing their cars deeper into the corners and taking advantage of the prodigious amount of grip afforded their vehicles by the Goodyear slicks. Jamie Slone and his number 9 car briefly vacated the asphalt during the session, but he was able to secure pole position, followed by Phil De La O and Matt Maddox. The cars charged hard at the wave of the green flag and negotiated the first turn well, setting the stage for a smooth, deliberate race for all involved. The cars mixed it up for the first few laps of the race, with Slone and De La O leading the pack. The abnormally hot ambient temperature -- well over 100 degrees -- proved for a slippery track, but despite a couple of dropped wheels the race was incident-free. Jamie Slone and Phil De La O's best lap times were within fifteen hundredths of each other, a testament to the well-tuned nature of the Bondurant Formula Mazdas. The pair took first and second place in the race, respectively, and Matt Maddox secured third.

"After all of our preparation, it's exciting to see our baby take its first steps," said Alan Rudolph, Series Director. "Our entire crew is looking forward to an excellent season for the first year of the Bondurant Championship Race Series."

Larry Pond, Race Director for the ASA Racing-sanctioned event, echoed Rudolph's comments and said that he was "proud to be associated with the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving and its efforts to cultivate and develop enthusiastic racers."