RaceFiend

I started autocrossing over a decade ago in Houston, TX and was pretty serious about it for 4-5 years. I did quite well and was very regionally competitive, but never got serious enough to make it to nationals. At some point I bought a GTI, got carried away with souping it up and was no longer 'competitive' despite being very quick. Eventually, I moved to the bay area from Texas a few years ago after my souped up GTI got flood damage. I now drive an old Lexus SUV that was kindly given to me.

Well... The itch has finally gotten to be too much for me and I need to get back on a track. My wife and I had a baby 6 months ago and it's hard to rationalize spending even a few grand on a track rat (I'm thinking a 90-04 Miata or a 89-91 Civic Si if those are still competitive in STS) and I'm wondering a few things...

1. Would anyone would be interested in renting their car for a co-drive? I'm very respectful and have missed this sport very very dearly so I would be infinitely grateful to anyone who would even consider trusting me with their ride.
2. If I wanted to be competitive on a budget, have a bit of room to upgrade my car and also have some good competition, what would be a good class for me? I'm guessing STS would be what I'm looking for, but since it's been a while, I'm not sure anymore.
3. Are there any practice days coming up where I could get a crapload of seat time to make up for all the years I've been missing out?

I'm at a conference for the next couple of days, so I may not be very responsive til Monday, but I'm excited to meet all of you and to get back into the community.

sybir

iTrader: (45)

So, uh, welcome. Always nice to see new folks, but your first post, location, and interests seem a little.......odd, and that's going to limit the responses you'll see here as they're kind of confusing.

This is the Sac/Reno forum - Marin and the North Bay are 1.5-2.5 hours away. We have limited local autox, and people are either competing in Reno, or in the Sac region which is Sac/Stockton locations. You might have better luck posting up in BAIC - the bay area region, or checking out the Bay Area SCCA region for more info.

You say your history is in FWD european cars, your current vehicle is a Toyota, and your prospective vehicles are Hondas and Miatas...asking for co-drives on an enthusiast forum for primarily turbocharged AWD cars, which have a very different driving style, are much less tolerant of transmission abuse, heavier on tire wear, brakes, etc, than small hatches, is kind of a weird request - most folks are not that comfortable with friends driving their cars, let alone a stranger with zero experience in that type of vehicle. We blow up our cars just fine ourselves - and very few have dedicated autoX cars.

By the same token, asking for autoX class advice here is also somewhat misguided - if you scroll down just a few posts, there's a whole thread for the autocross group - where you'll find that most folks are either RNP or not modding to a particular class and defaulting to SM because of suspension changes for street use. Not very relevant if you're trying to be competitive.

I would highly encourage checking out the BAIC regional forum, as well as Miata forums and their regional section - you're much more likely to find someone who has a bevy of Miatas with some more targeted advice for what you're looking to do, or a small fleet of more disposable cars or cheap runners. Subarus are not cheap to prep or support for AutoX.

JourdanWithaU

iTrader: (39)

Go to http://www.baautox.com

You will probably be able to buy a co-drive from someone there.

Like Sybir said, this is a Subaru forum. There's AutoX talk here, but a very small percentage of the users here are committed to AutoX.