Quote Originally Posted by Thighs
i dont see why any of you guys would recommend someone who doesnt seem to have any experience in competitive or high performance driving other than the backroads on his way home from work to skip autocross and go straight to PDX/HPDE... in my opinion, everyone who wants to do any sort of track driving needs to get a few autocross events under their belt before going to road atlanta and actually putting themselves in a high-risk environment before they REALLY know the limits of their car...

to the OP: go on www.soloatlanta.com for more information on local autocross events. autocross is a great way to learn your limits and the cars limits, and also to get a feel for everything.
One does not need to autocross before getting into HPDE. As a general rule, the track day newbie won't be pushing his/her car nearly hard enough to get into much trouble. One of the jobs an HPDE instructor has is cultivating the tools available to the student to get the most out of the car. Our, that is NASA's, first HPDE 1 sessions of the day typically start out as little more than higher speed parade laps. The sessions get faster as the weekend progresses and the students become more confident behind the wheel on track.

Track driving and autocross, although related, require slightly differing approaches. I had an instructor once that nearly instantly recognized that, up to that point, most of my driving experience was from autocross rather than track days; my control inputs were more abrupt than was appropriate for the track.

The bottom line, though, is that amateur motorsports is a great way to develop one's driving abilities, get to know the car, and actually use the car up to it's limits. It matters more that one get involved with an activity that he/she is comfortable with and will have fun doing than which of those activities it is.