A few questions from a potential owner

Hi all,

I've been surfing the board for a few weeks now, as I'm on a quest to find a new car for myself, and I've been doing some research on this board. It's an amazing place; a huge amount of information and very cool people.

I've read all about the foibles of the SVX, including the higher-than-average maintenance costs for everything and its propensity to mulch transmissions and wheel bearings. Regardless, I find myself coming back to the board to consider the car over and over again. So, I'd like to ask some questions:

1) For those who autocross the car, do you find that the automatic is a hindrance? I've been autocrossing for two years now, but always with a manual transmission; heck, I've never even *owned* an automatic, unless I count my wife's cars.
2) If I autocross, am I pretty much guaranteeing myself frequent replacement of the wheel bearings, or can they hold up if properly maintained?
3) Barring transmission failures and wheel bearing replacement, is the maintenance *really* that expensive? Bear in mind that I'm used to paying for maintenance on my 1998 BMW 328is, which isn't exactly cheap.
4) Am I going to be setting myself up for disaster if I only want to spend $3-4k on an SVX? I want to get out of my Bimmer payment and into a car I *own*, but it would be nice if the maintenance didn't add up to my $311/mo. payment. :-)

Thanks in advance for any advice or opinions you're willing to share!

-Brandon

P.S. Are there any owners in Maine? Just moved back here from Colorado, but I haven't seen any posts by anyone from Maine...