Congrats and welcome to the forum. As you found out, it is a wonderful resource.

I too shared the same concern about the oil change interval. But, once I really thought about the 8.5 quart oil capacity and the use of synthetic oil, I have decided to only change the oil when the FSS system from the on-board computer tells me.

Heck, my "normal vehicles" recommend oil changes at 7500 miles and that is with regular oil and only a 4-5 quart capacity. So if 7500 miles is good enough with the those vehicles, then the 8.5 qts of sythetics in the Crossfire should be plenty good for 7-8k. I must say that regardless of what the service manual says, I use Mobil 1 in all of my vehicles and go no longer than 4500k between changes. Many would consider that 4500 miles is too short of an interval for Mobil 1, but I'm not going to take any chances.