hi,
For my 17th birthday my parents surprised me with a 04 wrx. My question is because the car is automatic will it even be worth it to spend a couple thousand dollars tuning and get blown out by a manual car? Since I've never really raced before I don't know what the major pros/cons are between manual and automatic transmissions.

You lucky bastard. My brother got a wrx a month or two after he turned 17. But he wrecked it. In 5 days.

Anyways, autos are only a tiny bit slower because it isn't designed for racing, I guess you could change whatever controls the gear ratios for a racing setting. I'd help you more, but I don't know much at all about the way cars work.