Long haul and towing to Auto X
 

I have one hell of a haul to the nearest Auto X site. I drive an hour and fifteen minutes to my hometown, where my sister and I bleed brakes and do whatever else needs to be done. Next morning it's an hour and forty five minute haul to the site. I want to bring along some race rubber and spare parts. I know some guys use a small trailer, but is a long haul like that pushing my luck? Should I just get a cheap old truck and trailer bed and haul everything with it? I keep offering my brother use of my car if he hauls stuff for me in his station wagon, but he's an artsy musician type. No interest in motorsports. Would an old CRX have room for four tires and an air compressor? My little sister could drive that for me when she turns 16 (she loves going as my self loading ballast to events). I know Damon does the trailer, but from what I remember reading he doesn't have as long of a ride as I do.

There are two risks you'll take driving on race rubber:

1. Puncturing the tire
2. Rain!

Having said that, I have driven (and a few others around me have as well) to tracks on rcompounds. Our drive is usually about an hour to the track. I will be doing the tire trailer after this year (I have to get the car back on the road first!).

you have room in the seven for four tires..

You're kidding, right? Maybe if you don't have a passenger seat or a driver! Post some pics and prove me wrong, please.

Oh, and bonus points if you could succeed with my roll bar.

tires were 245s... this was a friends fd..
we were on our way to the now defunct and classic bridgehampton race track in long island..
two on the front.. one on top of the bins andthe other on the hatch..
possibly fit wider tires if the spare was removed... the spare was left on this config...

no bonus points zullo.. there was no mention of roll bar..
heres 2 fd seats for transport... could actually fit 3....
these were done with the stock seats in place..

^^ purdy paint Amp! You going to be a Mazda drivers in June?

I'm impressed! I tried and thought there was absolutely no way I could fit four tires. Or even two, for that matter! ;-)

And yeah, the yellow looks real nice.

My car is all stock and I pull a tire trailer behind it about half the weekends out of the year. If the trailer is balanced correctly the car really doesn't even notice it back there. I haul the trailer back and forth to Houston 2-3 times a year at a constant 80+ mph for about 5 hours (even in 100 degree summers) with the a/c on. One local site is a 90 mile drive from my house and I do that one about once a month. The other sites are about 30 miles from my house. No problem at all; the engine doesn't even work hard.

My entire trailer loaded with tires, tool and supplies can't weight but a few hundred pounds or so. The car doesn't care; that's an easy load to pull. The car doesn't even have to support the weight, it just has to pull it. My trailer is going on its sixth season now and all I've done maintenance wise to it was repack the wheel bearings.

Damon, where did you pick up the hitch? Is it a U-Haul?

Do you notice the 30 lbs behind the rear wheels when tracking / autocrossing?

Yes.

Trailer hitch for FD Part numbers, hitch install info, trailer info and pics.

Damian's hitch install

Nope. The hitch weighs less maybe 20 pounds; I just had mine off a few weeks ago.

The hitch sits directly under the fuel tank and gasoline weighs about 6 pounds per gallon. There's a bigger difference in weight between a full tank of gas and a 3/4 tank of gas then there is between hitch and no hitch. Don't worry about it. I run my fuel level at 3/4 tank or more to prevent startvation. I'd love to be allowed to install a surge tank and run with a minimal amount of fuel. If I ran with only 5 gallons of fuel in the tank I'd be about 90 pounds lighter on the rear end!!!

DAMN that TRAILERQUEEN!