Originally Posted by altiain
Welcome to the board, Rick! :chug:
As mentioned above, the Azenis (RT-215 or the newer RT-615), or the Hankook RS-2s seem to be the most popular street tires for autocrossing. They're all available in sizes that will work on your wheels, and you can run TES with SCCA and ER, Miata (instead of Miata R) with S2k, and Z Class with BMWCCA. The three tires are close enough in performance that I'd probably opt for whichever one I could find the cheapest.
As for budget shocks, a lot of us are running KYB AGXs, available new on ebay for less than $300 a set shipped. I've been using them this season, and I'm very pleased with them. I like them better than the Konis I used to have.