hey all, I got my X at the beggining of may. Im planing on taking it to my first SCCA Pro Solo event coming up in may 31st. I suspect the car will have over 1000 miles, but probably no 1st oil change.

You guys think its too soon to autox the car? like i mentioned this is going to be my first time racing. Im doing a driver's school in the morining and the actual event the following day.

These scca events set up courses that are max like 80 sec runs. I think by the end of the weekend, I'd put the car under 7 minutes of actual racing. My uncle who's been autoxing for a long time, says not to worry. The car would be pass the factory break in period... plus the stress that an autox will put on the car doesnt really come close to really getting on the vehicle.

So my question is do you guys think it would be that bad to follow through with this event?

:peepwall:

If it makes you happy, why not?! The car should have its clutch broke it and it's not to shy of what I normally send a vehicle through a weekend of road racing. Just take good care of her and ENJOY! Cars, after all, are meant to be driven. :shades:

Go for it, but change the oil asap.

^^+1 yes!!! change the oil.

i'd like to change it before hand but it may not be worth it. I have to drive about 150 miles out to get to the event. Thats where i suspect to hit a lil over 1000 miles. I plan on making that judgment closer to the date, to see exactly how many miles the car has before that weekend.

if ur past 600 miles, change the oil.
just a suggestion
enjoy the races, if you know of any road course type tracks near Charlotte NC, can you lemme know?
Is there somewhere I can go to ran solo laps, so I don't have to worry about others ramming my X, or is that what AutoX is.
Pardon the newbie Q's.

Go and enjoy yourself. Take it serious but have fun with it and you will see a marked improvement over the day. Don't worry about the effects on the car. It's brand new, it can take it.

Auto-x is a slalom course in which you run solo on the track trying to get the best time against yourself and the other cars in your class.

I plan on doing an auto-x event mid-july and I'll only have just over 1000 miles too, no worries about it at all.

any track picks?

What class should Evo IV run in?

auto x is basically a big lot with a course set up with cones. So the tracks are different at every event. go to www.scca.com (http://www.scca.com), thats one of the largest sporting groups. You can check pro solo events locally that they host.. or get a link to a different club near you. The worst thing that happens with auto x is you hit a cone or 2. nothing detrimental. some ppl tape up there bumpers, just for the fact of saving some time of rubbing the rubber skid marks cones will leave on your car. They're very safe events. Its mainly an agility course, and it comes down to the driver more so than the car. Top speeds you'll hit wont be over 70mph, and a run lasts from about 60 - 90 seconds depending on the track.

As far as saftey and stress on the car, running aroung a road course is by far more dangerous. Not that i have much experience in either areas.

But it looks well, I'm more confident going into the event as far as if the car is ready or not. I would like to get the oil changed before the event... but my milage or staus of the oil may not make it worth it. I'd deffinitly get it changed after the event.

i too am about to do my first auto x with this car. Mine is sunday. Right now i am trying to figure out what class i am going to run. I am thinking STS or STU. what class did the Evo IV run?


Evo's run A Stock unless you've modded your car.

here's a few quick links from their site.

Classes out of the Factory:
http://scca.com/documents/Solo%20Rules/2008_Stock_Category_Classifications_By_Manufacturer.pdf

Class modifications:
http://scca.com/documents/Solo%20Rules/solo_categories.pdf

any track picks?

these are some pics i took a couple years ago when i went out to spectate
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h55/shapdog/Other%20Pics/DSC00270.jpg

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h55/shapdog/Other%20Pics/DSC00252.jpg

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h55/shapdog/Other%20Pics/DSC00255.jpg

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h55/shapdog/Other%20Pics/DSC00247.jpg

thanks

nice pics. go hard.. and when youve gone hard.. go harder..

auto x is basically a big lot with a course set up with cones. So the tracks are different at every event. go to www.scca.com (http://www.scca.com), thats one of the largest sporting groups. You can check pro solo events locally that they host.. or get a link to a different club near you. The worst thing that happens with auto x is you hit a cone or 2. nothing detrimental. some ppl tape up there bumpers, just for the fact of saving some time of rubbing the rubber skid marks cones will leave on your car. They're very safe events. Its mainly an agility course, and it comes down to the driver more so than the car. Top speeds you'll hit wont be over 70mph, and a run lasts from about 60 - 90 seconds depending on the track.

As far as saftey and stress on the car, running aroung a road course is by far more dangerous. Not that i have much experience in either areas.

But it looks well, I'm more confident going into the event as far as if the car is ready or not. I would like to get the oil changed before the event... but my milage or staus of the oil may not make it worth it. I'd deffinitly get it changed after the event.

Shapdog, 60-90 seconds is actually a fairly long autox course and most ProSolo events average about 30-35 seconds as it is 2 mirror courses on the same lot. A friend of mine once described autox as a horizontal roller-coaster.

As to the oil change, definitely do so beforehand. While autox is the lowest stress motorsport you can participate in, a full day of runs is still a workout.

What tires will you be using? If R-compounds, make sure you take care of them. Most only last 100-150 runs and you can easily put on 30+ runs at a school. If you are using your original tires, be aware that they won't grip as well and you'll want to replace them much sooner.

I'm heading down to the Atlanta DoubleX event this weekend, which is a variation on the ProSolo theme and then I'm on the DC SCCA Solo committee and helping to run the DC ProSolo.

Congrats on the car and good luck w/ the school. :)

any track picks?
Kwiq: There's some great videos of the events that we've run at FedEx Field here at www.TeamWTF.org.

thanks for the link. I was thinking B stock but A stock looks fine. The competition doesn't look too bad as long as they are stock.
In SCCA classing,the only items you can change in stock class are the front swaybar, shocks, and you can run DOT-legal tires on stock size rims.

This year my bf is co-driving a B Stock RX-8 and I'm running a H Stock Protege5.

As far as too soon: I know 2 Shelby GTs that were purchased only to be autoxed, and sit on a trailer 90% of the time. They were both purchased last year and one of them is up to 450 miles now. Took it in to the dealership for a regular check and when they ran the computer, it said the car was averaging 5mpg. The tech thought something must surely be wrong, but the owner said, "Don't touch it!!! It's just fine..." :D But neither car is a daily driver and they're willing and able to handle it if anything happened to their cars at an event.

In SCCA classing,the only items you can change in stock class are the front swaybar, shocks, and you can run DOT-legal tires on stock size rims.

This year my bf is co-driving a B Stock RX-8 and I'm running a H Stock Protege5.

With my 350Z i run B stock, and although there a few things you can change, they make a huge difference. I changed class because i was racing against an Rx-8 and M3 on r Compound with suspension and front sway bar. So although the mods are small, i seem to be more evenly matched when i run in the stu classes with the Z.

Cant wait for sunday though :rock:

Evos are awesome in STU. We have one that is co-driven here and just kicks ass. :D

I'll be driving a STS2 Miata on R-comps this weekend in CSP. Should be fun. :)

hey KatYA... maybe you've heard of my uncle.. he pretty popular on the scca forums. the biggest goof in the community. David Lehman. he's also going to atlanta this weekend and the following weekend. He has a shelby GT as well, but donesnt race that one too much (daughter's car). He races a silver C5 Z06. It runs ASP and its one of the beastliest cars in its class. Drives with a guy named Hector. If you see a clear spoiler on the car that says RAFT you've found my uncle in-law. Really funny guy, and he's pretty excellent at the sport.

about the time for the runs.. It was my uncle who told me that this club has tracks that last over a minute. The other's that I have been to are usually between 35 - 45 second passes like you said.

hey KatYA... maybe you've heard of my uncle.. he pretty popular on the scca forums. the biggest goof in the community. David Lehman. he's also going to Atlanta this weekend and the following weekend. He has a shelby GT as well, but doesn't race that one too much (daughter's car). He races a silver C5 Z06. It runs ASP and its one of the beastliest cars in its class. Drives with a guy named Hector. If you see a clear spoiler on the car that says RAFT you've found my uncle in-law. Really funny guy, and he's pretty excellent at the sport.

about the time for the runs.. It was my uncle who told me that this club has tracks that last over a minute. The other's that I have been to are usually between 35 - 45 second passes like you said.
OMG!!!! He is a riot. :D I love reading his posts over there, he is absolutely insane. And I wish I "had" to sell my Elise and Sti to balance out my new M3 lease. :p

he's looking for the SC elise now. Hes a complete nut, but hes funny and I love him. he goes through car trades like nothing.

The event we'd be going to would be the gulfcoast event in ft.myers FL. Idk how far it is from you, but come if your free. sounds like you'd be taking quite a drive to AL.

Go for it, but change the oil asap.
Including the gear oil + diff oils. Very important.

The Evo IV ran great.

glad to hear you had fun!

What did you mean by asc partially off? Can you control specifics on the asc or s-awc?

the traction control button, press it once and it turns some of the systems off. I believe the AYC stays on and something else. But if you hold it down for 5 sec it turns all the systems off.

LOL I have the same issue. My last 3 cars before the X have been Camaro SS and 2 Trans Ams. I still try to countersteer sometimes out of habbit. :slaphead:

So i did the auto x this sunday. I am impressed with how it did, but i have to change my driving style. I am used to FWD and RWD cars, so i was fighting the Evo at first. By my last go i started to get the hang of it, but i still placed 3rd behind two 07 STI's. Oh well, the combo that worked best for me was, gravel setting, and asc partially off. I did try it completely off and that was fun. With the asc partially off it still lets you have fun. I was able to do a AWD drift around one turn, just don't countersteer, or the system will make you go where your countersteering.

Overall i had a blast, i have much more to learn about awd, and i can't wait till next month!

Well I just got back from my first auto X event aned I had a blast! The car did great and kept my novice skills up with the rest of my class. I raced the car under STU and took 2nd place. Ron Assese in a GG IX beat by a good 5 seconds on the track( I ran 75.2 to give you an ideal of how big of a gap that 5 seconds is). But he's a great experienced driver from what I hear, and a possibly better set-up car. And for the total event I pax'd 59 out of 104. Not bad for my first autox. Lehman deffinitly gave me some good pointers and a jump start. If only I had the ability to use them all in the same run:imstupid:

As far as the wear on the car.. I had a stinky cluth at the end of the practice day. One becuase I got about 15 runs between the novice course and practice course which was 15 launches.. and 2 because it was my first time ever launching this awd car. I had trouble finding the medium between bogging and smoking the clutch. The race day wasnt bad.. only 3 runs. Now said and done the clutch feels exactly like it did before. Even though it reeked saturday it still grabs how it always did.

My advans took a harsh beating as well. My novice abilities had me sliding a lot more which caused more tire abuse than the more expierenced driver would normally get.

the traction control button, press it once and it turns some of the systems off. I believe the AYC stays on and something else. But if you hold it down for 5 sec it turns all the systems off.

I dont think the AYC turns off.. for thats a big help when racing the car. A big pointer that puts our evo's over the new STI. I deffinitly liked the GRAVEL awc setting vs the tarmac. I felt the gravel setting gave the car alot more rear biased feel and helped the car rotate vs the understeer feeling of the tarmac setting. I spun the car on accident in one of my pracitce runs... a bad mistake on my part. (I did get a rock-on from an X owner who had tired to do that since the day he got the car :rock:)


**But i'm a new driver...I wouldnt take this advice to any extremes

AYC does not turn off.