History lesson: the first high performance driving school

How would you like erstwhile Formula One driver and 24 Heures du Mans winner Carroll Shelby to be your chief instructor? Or Pete Brock (of Brock Racing Enterprises fame) to be your event registrar? Well before your local NASA or CCA chapter was organizing track days, there was this, the Carroll Shelby School of High Performance Driving.

Retiring from racing in 1961, he decided to open a Goodyear Racing Tire Distributorship and a driving school at a young Riverside International Raceway, called “Carroll Shelby School of High Performance Driving.” He also called upon his friend, Pete Brock, to manage to operation. This school later became the Bob Bondurant school in 1968 at a SoCal drag strip and small road course called Orange County Raceway. When the Ontario Motor Speedway in California was built the school was moved to a dedicated road race/oval track. However, when Ontario was to be demolished after several years, the school was moved to its present location in Phoenix, Arizona.