Definitely take your car if you are able. It will save valuable time when you are busy, tired and need to get something to eat etc.. Also, after ground school is over in the afternoon or evening if the CPTs are occupied at CEC you have the option of going over to FlightSafety to do flows and/or sit in on sims. (By the way, sitting in on a sim session before sim one was of great benefit to me and I highly recommend it.) As for the car being a distraction, I would respectfully suggest that if someone can't focus on getting the job done then they may be in the wrong business.

The hotel area is crappy but the parking lot has guards at night. Don't leave anything of value visible in your car and you should be fine barring some very bad luck.

If you go down to Beale Street on the weekends split a cab/van. Parking can be expensive and it would be really dumb to end up with a DUI after coming this far...

Work hard in training but take some time to relax on the weekends and you should have no problems.