Wayne, I totally agree with Andrew. Stay on stock tires for at least your
first "season" (definition of which depends on frequency of autocrossing:
normal person, 1 year; me, 2 months).
You will learn much more about car control on street tires. Street tires
are LESS forgiving than race tires. Go back and read that again. Less
forgiving. So you have to develop better driving skills to compete with
street tires. Doing so will make you a better driver a year from now.
I recently autocrossed my car on street tires for the first time in 2
years. I was terrible! (not really slow, but terrible - an interesting
difference) I have resolved to do a street tire autocross once or twice a
year from now on. Easy for me because less than a quarter of my
autocrosses are at a place where I really care about the outcome.
Also, at the end of the last season I competed on street tires, I was 5%
behind the fastest people in my class. I put on fancy shocks and race
tires over the winter, and for the next few autocrosses I was. . . 5%
behind the leaders. Race rubber only helps you if you are pushing the car
to its limits. That's very hard to do - and you aren't there, yet.
Also, I believe that someone here looked at rollover accidents at
autocrosses and found that the majority occurred with stock shocks and race
rubber. A chancey proposition in a normal-performance car like yours. I
doubt that you get your money's worth out of the air intake, either. . .
Welcome to the wonderful world of autocrossing!
Chris Eckles
Atlanta
Blue M Coupe
>
Wayne:
If you can stand to follow this advice, you'll be much further ahead in the
long run....Don't buy anything for the car now. Coming in 12 out of 15
after your first solo event, I can guarantee you that you aren't using
10/10ths of the tires on your car now. Stay on street tires, and run in
Novice for a while. Take the money that you want to spend on wheels and
tires and go to as many schools and events as you can. Autocross is 90%
driver, 5% car and 5% magic voodoo. The only way you can get yourself up
to
that 90% of the equation is with TONS of seat time.
There's also another reason not to jump to race tires. Race tires are not
good for learning car control. Street tires allow for more mistakes, and
give a lot of warning before giving way. Race tires, will often break away
with little to no warning, making it more difficult to find the edge. I've
seen Bad Things happen to rookies on slicks, including two wrecked cars.
After you've got a season under your belt, then start thinking about
working
on the car.
-A.
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