Physics Question

I need help with a question.
I'm in Physics I and just getting into acceleration. Here is a question:

at a sports-car rallyy, a car starting from rest accelerates uniformly at rate of 9.0m/s^2 over a straight line distance of 100m The time to beat in this event is 4.5 s. does the driver do it? if not what must the minimum acceleration be to do so?

So acceleration = 9.0m/s^2
Distance = 100m
starting velocity is 0 (so i think)

what should i be doing next?

You should be using formulas, of course.  In fact, this one is relatively easy.  We can even ignore the acceleration that is given if we want since the question asks "if not what is the minimum acceleration?"  The trick is always to find the correct velocity formula for the situation.  In this case, it doesn't care about the final velocity, but it does care about both time and distance constraints.

x = V*t + 0.5*a*(t^2)
x = distance : V = initial velocity : a = acceleration : t = time

Solve for a. Your answer is the minimum acceleration the rally car would need.

Dude...if I were moving 9m/s^2, my car would be shaking! 100m in 4.5s? No problem!

>>3
This is where you would be wrong!
The answer is actually x >= 9.877m/s^2.

>>4
Bah. That should have been an 'a'.