Thanks for the comments all! This one will be a street legal track car, so we can drive to the track and use the car otherwise as we see fit. The past two years, we have been using our 2009 911 convertible at these events. We (Marcia and me... well, mostly me..) decided that we want to keep the 911 as nice as possible. Plus, as I am getting (a little) faster, I want/need more safety equipment. I am working with the owner of a shop near me (KMC auto in Lawrence) who does a lot of prep work on HPDE cars and also builds race cars. The immediate plan is to put in a half cage, racing seats, harnesses, and HANS device. The car came with all season tires. I will either keep them and buy new/used wheels for the track tires or I may swap the tires in the spring. I will probably go with an ultra high performance summer tires so I can drive on the street as well as the track. I’ll update the brake pads when the current ones wear and for sure will put in a race level brake fluid I the spring. FWIW, we have been using stock pads on the 911 and went through a set of pads only after three events that were 3 days long, and had Marcia and me each driving the car.
I am totally not worried about the suspension or getting devoted track tires. The suspension checks out fine for now, and I am not good enough to worry about getting more grip with track tires. As time goes along, we will upgrade suspension, bushings, mounts, etc. Fortunately, we have 5 pretty good tracks within a 90 minute drive, so driving to and from the track is not a big deal - all we need is enough room in the car for our clothes for the weekend of the events (and a bottle of bourbon). We hope to never get to the point of wanting to trailer the car!