Autocross N00B thread.

[No-Coast-Punk]

Mods may want to pin this for future reference.

I'm seeing a few questions on Auto-x classification stuff pop up. Hopefully this will clarify some of the mystery.

http://www.scca.org/documents/Solo%20Rules..._categories.pdf

This is a quick rundown of what the common autocross classes are.

What's the big deal with classes? Classes are indexed. If you are getting competitive and really chasing times, the index times are important. This means they take your raw time for a lap and multiply it by the index. Classes for slow cars have a lower index such as .8. Classes for very fast cars have an index approaching 1.0. This means that at the end of a day, someone in a close to stock super slow car can have a faster index time than a supercharged Corvette wearing slicks. If you REALLY don't care about your times, run non-indexed. It saves the poor time control workers a bit of grief since they don't have to calculate your index.

My advice to anybody is to do whatever it takes to keep your car from getting bumped into Street Modified (SM). A good SM car is well under 3,000lbs. Makes over 400hp (unless it's something like a Miata, then they're supercharged). Wears big slicks on all 4 corners. Wears very high dollar suspension bits. It's fairly easy to get booted into SM too.

It's not the end of the world if you do have to run in SM... but it's no fun to get the results back and find yourself running dead last.

Any street touring class is fairly easy to be competitive in. Stock classes are even easier. Read the rules, "stock" classes still allow a few mods.

http://www.scca.org/documents/Solo%20Rules...olo_Rules_2.pdf

This is the full rulebook. It's hundreds of pages long. Only consult unless you're bored or curious or think your car might be borderline close to getting knocked into some scary class.

Any future questions from someone looking to get into auto-x should go into this thread.

[MazdaTom]

Here is also a quick classing run down:
http://www.moutons.org/sccasolo/index.shtml

It might not be 100% official (refer the rule book), but it gives a quick run down of what is allowed and what isn't.