arsenal

Check out the PIR website. Lots of helpful links.

In Portland alone we have Hooked on Driving, the various club days (BMW, Alfa, Audi) the Cascade Sports Car Club, HPDE's, SCCA events at PIR - should be easy to find this info.

Then there's ORP not too far away, and the Ridge up in WA.

GuthNW

Thanks, I've been looking into PIR's site as well as the SCCA info. Have you ever attended the Hooked on Driving event? Since motorcycle helmets aren't acceptable, I'm curious if they rent out approved helmets at PIR for this event. If not, is there any place in the metro area that sells helmets with the Snell SA2010 rating that you would recommend?

arsenal

Yeah Sidedraught in SE sells helmets.

Haven't done a HoD event - they're quite a bit more expensive out here.

If you're getting your feet wet try a Track Night in America. It's cheap and an easy way to get on the track, however it can be a little scary with some of the egos.

Have you done any karting? Maybe we should have an S2KI day down at Pats Acres...

DanielB

Snell updates their helmet testing process every 5 years. Most track organizers will accept helmets up to 10 years old with a 1 year grace period. So Snell 2015 is the most current and has 7-8 years left. It really doesn't make sense to buy a 2010.

engifineer

Going to +1 on autocross. It is cheap and safe relative to other forms of competitive driving and I think you are going to learn far more about car control that way. For one, autox has a lot of elements you will not see on a track (slaloms for example) that REALLY teach you smoothness and control. For another, you will be at lower speeds in a much safer environment, thus you will be much more willing to push your limits and learn the car than you will be at 100 mph + on a big track with other cars around you. On an autox course you learn a lot about weight transfer, fast transitions, etc and also learn how to manage the car when you miss the marks. And if it all goes wrong, you spin the car and maybe hit some cones... no biggie I say that, but one of our autox sites here is a driving course, so we still do have the aspect of going off the pavement, but at much lower speeds than when we are running a track night at the same location.

nibble

AutoCross & Track Driving are different style of driving. Try both and see what you like better. Given your experience, going to HPDE probably benefit you the best. Also explore going to professional school such as Skip Barber. Either intermediate or advanced based on your skill as well as car control clinic.

If you are planning to prep your car for track, I'd recommend to have a stock setup to begin with, OEM brake pad or quality, & same for tire as well. the reason for that is, unless you know what you want, you may get some good recommendation at the track. then you can switch over to what you want. you can always use OEM/quality parts on the street anytime. If there's one thing I'd recommend regardless, I'd recommend to switch to steel braided brake hose. This will benefit all the time.

DanielB

There's also a marked difference in how much time you get on track. A full day at an HPDE running sessions will get you at least 2 hours on track at speed. The ones I attend usually do 30 min sessions broken into fast and slow groups. So by the end of the day you could have 3 hours total on track. Contrast that to Autocross where most runs are around 1 min and if you get 10 runs in a day that's a lot. To be clear, I'm not putting it down as it's also less stressful on the car, the entry fees are usually a lot less, and it has significantly lower cost of consumables. Just pointing out that for some (like me) that wouldn't be enough time at speed.

engifineer

While they are different types of driving, there are TONS of aspects of car control you will learn autocrossing that carry over. My first time ever at a track event, I ran in a novice group. About half the people in that group had run other track days but none of them autocrossed. I had autocrossed a long time. I spent the sessions lapping everyone from old RX-7s to an 800hp ZR1 (this is not to say I am amazing, only that I had practiced a set of skills they had not yet). Second track event I moved to intermediate, same story. So I moved to advanced and the faster group of us there are mostly autocrossers. Again, there is no ego about it and I am not johhny racecar driver. And there are plenty of track folks who have done nothing but that for years that will outrun me. But this just goes to show that the skills absolutely cross over. And as a reference I am by no means an "Alien" driver. Autocross wise I am usually close to mid pack in our pro index class (top 10-20 in pax) locally and am not at the front of the pack nationally at all (usually mid pack from a pax perspective, back half in my class). And the local track nights are on a short course with short straights, so the people that are slow in the corners with gobs of hp for the straights kinda lose their advantage there so it makes things fun and interesting :P

This is not to say at all that autox is better, teaches you better things, etc but points to the fact that driving skill is driving skill and focusing on the very granular details of car control pays off in all situations. In my 14 years of autocrossing, I have seen far more autocrossers who were fast on a track right away than track people that were at the front of the pack autocrossing. On an autox course, you are practically always turning, always transitioning weight around. Things come at you much faster since there are really almost no straight sections on a course. Coming to that from hpde only is a bit of a huge change. . Now.... keep in mind that on a big track you are going much faster and turns are longer, so setup wise, you can get yourself in trouble with a "Good" autocross setup on a big track if you are not careful and you will need to adjust your driving a bit going either direction due to the types of elements. But in no way should you limit yourself to just picking one or the other. Autocross absolutely will benefit you as a driver on a track. There is no question about that.

Now seat time is much lower as mentioned. What you can do is see if your local region has test n tunes or practice days for autocross. At our practice events locally, it is very easy to get upwards of 50 runs in a day. Thats not bad for $35-$40. I tend to cut myeslf off around 30ish to save on tires :P If you want to autocross just for fun, practice and seat time, find practice events. Plus, while we have instructors available for competition events, you do not HAVE to be an instructor to ride along at practice events, meaning you can find some fast people to ride with, or to ride with you and help you improve That is of course if your local clubs go by similar rules.

The main thing is to get out there and enjoy the s2000 doing the things it was made for, which you are looking to do. So it is hard to go wrong from there