Good choice. If your looking to shake down a car the PBIR event is great. The reason being PBIR is a safe venue if something does happen. Also if something needs to be addresed you can work on you car and then go back out to test it. At an Auto-Cross you run time is more structured and you might not get enough time to fix it.
Chris
Speed Syndicate

 

On the flip side, if you break your car on your first autocross run and it can't be fixed right away, you're only out $30-40. If you break your car on the first lap of your track session and can't fix it, you're out $300-400.

Autocross is a great "shakedown" step if you don't have great faith in your car. Nowhere near the stress of a track session... but if you can't make it through a few autocross runs, you WON'T make it through a session at the track! You can also reveal suspension and handling problems that you might otherwise only see "when you get in trouble" on the track.

 

Not true for most local events around Tampa...I can't think of one where someone with a mechanical problem didn't get a little time to fix it and then take the rest of their runs. That doesn't mean you can use events as a test-and-tune session and hold up things while you're swapping parts around, but it's not "break and you're out."

 

Loren, thanks for pointing this out. Might have to re arrange a couple things and take the car to an auto-x track before our first real track session. Our first race weekend available will be the weekend of the 10-11th.

 

go to the Corvette event, it's what you are looking for. $40 and you get a hotdog. I would sign up now though. Technically you can sign up as late as Thursday, but with the holidays that is kind of rude to Sam the organizer. Sign up before Wednesday, no harm if you don't show up.

 

The corvette even is on Dec 3rd correct? Unfortunately the weekend of the 10th is the only weekend we have available to get the car out. BTW, the car is pretty sound, but it hasnt seen the track or a hard day of racing yet, we should be getting it tuned in the next week or two and well find out if were going to have any mechanical issues then besides what the track will show.

 

Looks like the BMW CCA is holding a FSC vs Porsche Zephyrhills event on Decemeber 11th, do they allow other cars to attend these events besides bmw and porsches? This would be a great first venue for us.

 

OK, looks like I found the event we will be attending. Its close enough to home if the car breaks it wont be that big of a deal and it will only cost us $30.

Porsche-BMW Challenge at Zephyrhills Airport, Zephyrhills, FL
ClubRegistration.net

 

What are you driving?

 

Its a Honda CRX with a K20z1 swap in it. Just got finished recently, still need to put some tires on it, then get it balance and aligned, dyno tuned and wrapped. Hopefully we can get all of this in before the event!