Advice for a noob at autocross / lapping

[Heeley]

I'm going to make my first foray into lapping / autocross this spring. I've been working away at prepping my car for the season. I think being my first season of lapping & autocross i'm going to try to stick to street tires, although we'll see how long that'll last. I'm sure i'm going to be pretty slow at first though.

I have a few questions though:

1. Brake pads... which to choose? It seems lots of people have their own preference. I'm running stock brakes, although i'll be using fresh rotors. Not sure what to use for a pad. EBC Greenstuff? Yellows? Hawk? For the first while, i'm sure i don't really want to be swapping pads at the track if it can be avoided. That, and I don't think i'm going to get a ton of heat in them at autocross.
Maybe eventually a BBK, but for right now, i'll concentrate on getting faster.

2. Wheels... I'm currently just driving on stock wheels. I know everyone eventually wants to go to a 17 or 18" wheel. I'm just concerned about the reliability / strength of stock wheels. I've heard horror stories of cracking and complete failure of stock wheels. How big of a problem is it really, given that my FD is an early R1?

Sorry for the long post, but thanks in advance for suggestions!

- Heeley