@Diamond_Dave
If you dig around on the forums (as I did while panicking that my new car was broken), you'll find quite a people mentioning the same thing. It appears to be a more common issue with Proteges, and I believe similar to what
@323 said, it's caused by a warped flywheel from too much heat. From what I understand, it happens when you beat on the clutch too much and it gets too hot. I saw people saying it was more common because the flywheel is thin. So most people were recommending to not resurface the flywheel when doing the clutch, but to just replace it altogether.