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Originally Posted by MattR
Yeah, I'm planning on going this year, We should definately go together, (safety in numbers) I'm definately a nOOb when it comes to autocrossing.
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The best thing about autocrosses is that everyone's usually really friendly, especially to noobs. 'Course, I'm never been out to the Stead autocrosses (that's SCCA right?). All my autocrosses were with NASA in Monterey, the Cobra Car Club in Monterey and Sacramento, and with the American Autocross series in Sacramento.
I hear the SCCA events are a little more competitive, since thats a national league and doing well at the Regional level can lead to Nationals. The clubs I've raced with are usually *very* laid back... never once saw or heard of someone protesting.
Either way, if you're not competitive (and you won't be your first time out... shit, I've been doing this for like 3 years and I'm still slow!) people will usually go out of their way to help you learn. If we all go together, then we can do some ride-alongs to help everyone get a feel for driving fast in small spaces.
Oh, BTW: the number 1 thing you can do to help your times, LOOK AHEAD. Even after being told this, I still found it hard not to concentrate on the turn I was in, rather than look ahead to the next turn. The 2nd thing: SLOW DOWN. You're way faster if you slow down a little more than you need to rather than go too fast.
A good example what this guy who had a supercharged NSX. It was his 1st autocross, and after watching a bunch of people in Neons and Hondas turn 46 second laps, this guy figured he'd easily smoke them. Well, 1st lap out, he was driving like a maniac, way too fast, and spun twice... next lap, he didn't spin, but spent so much time just saving the car from spins, he had a 1:02 lap. Finally, his 3rd lap was very conservative, wasn't even squeeling the tires, and he turned a 48. Someone musta finally told him to SLOW DOWN!
Starting with a "slow" car is usually the way to go when getting into autocrossing. Now the WRX isn't exactly "slow", but if you leave the stock tires on, and have stock suspension, you can treat it that way. I learned to autocross in my '95 Thunderbird LX. 200hp, 4000lbs, and soft suspension. The car was a bit of a pig, but it was still a huge rush to drive it. A WRX on stock tires it a bit faster than that, but if you intentionally try to drive smooth laps rather than fast laps, you'll learn alot. The next step after that is to get some good tires, 17x7.5 seems to be the best size (unless you can go wider with rolled fenders, but then you're out of the lower classes that have a max tire width of 7.5").
Okay, now I'm just rambling...