Somewhat-less-Unofficial Novice FAQ

So you've chatted with friends, you've heard about it, or somehow decided to hit your first autocross in Atlanta Region. And you've got a lot of questions. Here's one autocrosser's attempt to get you pointed in the right direction.

First off, welcome!

I'm intentionally not going to cover how to drive your first autocross event, because they'll tell you when you get there. That begins with the Novice Chief (at the time of this writing, that's Roby Scheufler or J.D. Forinash) , who will host a novice meeting to get you started, and then the novices will get an extra course walk-through. The person guiding the course walk-thorough (one of the local hotshoes who knows what they're doing if you're lucky, one of the Novice Chiefs if you're not so lucky) will explain the course as you walk though it, and will give you an idea of what you should be looking at when you walk the course. Learning to walk the course and what you'll want to be looking for is a huge part of autocross, so be sure to ask questions if you have them. The Novice Chief's primary responsibility is to answer questions for you-- but if you get a question after the walk through, you don't need to go find him, you can ask pretty much anybody.

Ask anybody? It seems pretty counter-intuitive at first. Many drivers in the region are very competitive. They want to be at the top of their class. It seems odd that they would be so helpful to other people. What you'll eventually find, though, is that these people want to be the best driver. Many of the most competitive drivers will happily help you with car set-up or most anything else because they want to beat the best competition possible. They want to be better drivers, and competition is how to get there.

But before you get there, there's nobody to ask yet, and you'll need to know what to do before you show up. You'll need a few things for your first event:

To run in the Novice class, pick either N1 (Novice Morning) or N2 (Novice Afternoon) as your class. Joe's Amazing Registraterator will assign you a number (if the class isn't full) and you're set to go. Try to register early-- novice entries are limited to the first 25 people in each session (morning and afternoon)

Also, I noted a $35 entry up there. Note that for SCCA members, that's only $25. Membership is $75, and if you join up at an event, you run that day for free. So if you turn into an addict, I highly recommend joining the SCCA.

While those are the things you absolutely gotta have, there's another list of things I'd recommend for your first event:

And then there's the third list: Things to bring if you have them: Things you probably won't need (yet): Now, while folks in Atlanta Region are friendly, there are some things that are taken very seriously, and most of them have to do with safety. Tech inspection is very important, and so is the novice's meeting. Your car won't be allowed on course if it doesn't pass Tech, and you won't be allowed on course if you don't make the novice's meeting, no matter how nice we seem to be. As large as our crowds get, our registration folks have to be pretty firm in registration beginning and ending times. Keep your ears open, and be early in line when they open it. Oh, and on that subject: the region takes very poorly to people skipping out on their work assignments.

With a little bit of preparedness, your first Solo can be an excellent experience. Good luck, and have fun!

Other resources:

This is a link that was pretty good but seems to have gone away, but I'm hanging on to it here in case it comes back: