Welcome to the Great Lakes Division, and it's great to see some new blood joining ITC. Like Dan above, I also live up in Delaware, OH. I actually started racing back in 2000 with an ITC '85 Civic, which we still have, so I'm pretty familiar with the cars. When prepped well, they can run like clockwork. If not, they can be a little finicky. We too are going to be at the Blackhawk Farms school in April as I have two new racers renting my Civic's. If you would like, I'm sure we could work it out so you can paddock by us and we can lend you a helping hand. I'm always willing to help a new guy get his feet wet, as it can be a little overwhelming starting out.

We too also talked about going to Nelson Ledges instead of Blackhawk, but IMO the Blackhawk event will just be a much better event. Yes, it's about 6.5 hours away instead of 3.5, but they're dumping a bunch of money into the track right now for all brand new facilities, the track is well taken care of and safe, and the school itself is actually three days instead of two - school Friday and Saturday which will complete your school requirements, and then an actual regional race Sunday. Conversely, Nelson is just a two day Saturday and Sunday school. Plus the safety, facilities, and track surface of that place leave A LOT to be desired.

I have my own shop up here in Delaware where I prep all of our cars as well as some others, so if you'd like for me to take a look at anything for you or have any questions, just ask.

Kevin
kevin at ruckracing dot com

PS - buying Dave Gran's book as Dan posted above is a great idea. It answers a lot of questions a new racer will have.