First AX

[Idaho Red Rocket 3]

I did my first AX recently. It was the last event of the season so the SCCA had only a $15 fee to race for the day. Me and bunch of other newbies tried it out. I have to say it was very fun. I think it is to hard on my Wifes daily driver to do the 26 events the local club has each season. In order to make winning time it will take many $$$ of modifications and some way better than street tires to compete. Here is the thing, if we spend a possible $5000 in mods and tires the car will only do the lap in 5 to 10 seconds faster. I have not been able to convince myself that the fun factor is there for me to spend this much money and tear up my car. I think if I was to go into AX for real, I'd need a track car.

[kabel]

Don't invest anything more than seat time for now is my opinion.
Have fun, build up slowly. I think it's more fun that way.
Bummer you will have to wait out the entire winter before ding your second event!

[tnoice]

Completely agree.... More seat time and better tires will outweigh your $5,000 in mods.

[j.fro]

Holy cow, 26 events in a year is A LOT!!! I have to race with 3 different clubs in my area to get 12 each year.
Like the other folks have said, don't go spending money on mods (yet ). Figure out the classing system. If you go throwing mods at the car, you'll end up in B Street Prepared or F Prepared, which is the deep end of the AX pool. With no mods at all, but some sticky tires you should be in B Stock, which is not a bad place to start. If you don't even bother with the tires, there is probably a street tire index class, which may be an even better place to begin...or, that club may have an open stock novice class.
Pick a class that let's you concentrate on learning to drive the car, not upgrade it. Find a skilled driver or instructor, and ask that person to ride along on a run or two each time you go out. Hey, even get your wife involved and have a little intra-family competition. With 26 events (don't try to get them all the first year), you'll improve very quickly. Most of all, have fun driving your car.

[thstone]

Spend the first year doing as many events as you can (within reason). Keep the car stock but you might want to change to a stickier (low treadwear rating) street tire. Otherwise, don't change a thing.

The fun factor should be in getting out onto a course and ripping it up without any worry of getting a ticket and learning how to drive well.

Your stock daily driver should hold up fine. My car (still stock) has 20 track days so far this year and it looks as good as ever and runs as well as ever.

After a year of driving, assess where you are and where you want to go. You'll be amazed at how much better informed you'll be. And even more so, you'll know exactly where to put the $5,000 IF you really want to try to compete for some wins.