[husker boxster]

Rule #1 of DE / Track Days: Never drive your car on the track unless you're willing to push it off a cliff.

Obviously it's not that severe, but the point is valid. You can get track ins that will cover an accident, but mechanical issues will not be covered. A warranty would cover mechanical issues, but you'd need to read the fine print carefully about their coverage on track days.

With all that said and out of the way, you drive your car as hard as you want. If you want to drive it at 75-80%, no one but you cares as long as you don't impede them. Driving your car at higher speeds and rpms is not going to kill something that probably wouldn't fail on a spirited drive on a highway, with the exception of an AOS. Tracking Porsches has not shown to be harder on IMSs than non tracked cars. Just be sure your car is in top shape before you hit the track and you'll be in for the time of your life. There is so much more potential in your car than you can legally extract on the streets or highways. And you don't have to worry about spending the night at the gray bar hotel.

There is nothing wrong with driving on the track with a Tip trans. No one's going to laugh at you. There are plenty of PDKs out there, so auto trans are not verboten. Don't let that be a hinderance to you and no need to apologize to anyone.

Finally, you mention NASA. Have you considered a PCA event? PCA has great novice instruction and really stresses safety. I've only attended 2 NASA events, both at the same track, run by the same NASA group, 1 yr apart - Kansas Speedway in 2014 & 2015. The first yr I was in NASA 2, which ran with NASA 1 and the 2nd yr I was in NASA 3 which ran with NASA 4. I don't know anything about their novice training, but I had several novice drivers tell me when I was in NASA 2 their in-car instructors told them to follow me since I was driving the proper line. That's OK but not great instruction. An instructor should be working with you and teaching you, rather than being a passenger in a lead-follow situation. While NASA did some things better than PCA, for the most part their event management was below PCA. And I'm not just saying my region does it great, they do, but I've attended PCA events at Laguna Seca, COTA, and Indy, and they all did a great job. That's just my experience, YMMV and other NASA groups may be much better.