Before yall freak on the miles the car seems in very good shape,been driving it daily for a few months with no issues.

The event is 3 hours from home.

Thoughts?

How much gear do you have? That is my biggest problem with driving the car to an event. 2nd to that is being stranded. Before I had the cage and still had a working hatch I drove my car to events with 4 hoosiers, tools, helmet, cooler etc all packed in the car.

If a trailer is an option and you're more than 15 miles from home, I'd trailer it...because "stuff" happens... You never know when the racing gods will sacrifice a driveshaft, rear end (brake hop breaking things, etc), torque arm or who knows. Taking a trailer is well worth the piece of mind if it's possible to do so.

The tow fees to a friend's, garage half the distance from WGI to my house was almost $400. Luckily all but about $125 was covered by my motoring plan. However, that doesn't include the costs for food lodging or the cost of a return trip to the track to fetch my utility trailer and tools. If you can trailer it- save the headaches and do it.

+1

+2

having rented a uhaul truck and trailer to get my car home 1000 miles upon being broken at an HPDE, trailering is the way to go if it is an option.

haha, I wasn't going to mention it, but since someone else fess'ed up: I drove my car from Orlando to Kentucky last September for a Holley event and ended up trailering it back home just due to a seized oil relief valve. That was definitely an unplanned expense. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/rant2.gif)

If trailering is available, do it. I lost a brake line at an autox event and it cost me $600 to get home on a flatbed and I was only 60 miles from home. I immediately started looking for a trailer at that point. Sad thing is, that $600 could have been put towards my open trailer. That really burned me. Plus, by trailering you will arrive so much more relaxed, be less rushed the morning of the event. All you have to do is unload, go through tech and you are ready. At the end of the day, the same is also true. You will be tired, physically and mentally. Much easier to load it onto a trailer, strap it down and head home versus flipping tires, loading the car, etc.

Just be sure the trailer has a winch or at least bring a heavy duty come-a-long so you can get a broken car up onto a trailer. Without a winch, getting the car up onto the trailer could be difficult in the event of a catostrophic failure.

Chris

This post has been edited by 1qwikbird: Mar 10 2011, 10:53 PM

I used to drive my car to ORR events, up to 1400mi one way, drive the car at up to 185mph for a while, and drive it home. I was learning how to prep a race car in those years, and had some very close calls, finally did have to tap a friend for a return trip on his trailer from the middle of NV. So it can be done if you are diligent about prep, and lucky.

Later, once I had a tow rig, I would load up the daily driver Vette and trailer it even for HPDE days. It was such a relief knowing that no matter what happens I could get the car home myself, and there have been times that I returned the favor of years ago, and put someone in the Vette and hauled their dead car home for them. I could also load up all the spares and junk that I could stuff in the car and in the truck.

The tow companies are now charging $600 flat rate for a tow to the bay area from Thunderhill, a 3 to 4 hr drive.

edit - loading a dead car on the trailer - it's been my experience that whenever I needed to push a car onto the trailer in the paddock, 3 or 4 guys would magically appear and help, so never needed a winch on that end. If the car needs a dolly or something more serious than manpower, the event tow crew is usually bored silly and glad to help.

This post has been edited by Blainefab: Mar 10 2011, 11:19 PM

Car is a rock stock six speed with free mods and suspension. No trailer but can borrow one. That's a pita with the hours i am working.

Rent truck and your own trailer would be cheaper..

Rock stock cars break too.......

As soon as I read the "3 hours from home" part of it, it's a no-brainer. Trailer it.

Just remember, it doesn't have to be a "truck". My first tow rig was an E150 van with the 4.6L. It didn't get going very fast, but as long as you paid attention to how you loaded the trailer, it went down the road great.

And even if something breaks that's easily fixable before leaving the track, it's just so much nicer to throw it on the trailer and drag it home to work on it on _your_ time, instead of rushing around, at the end of a long, hot day driving to get the car in runable condition to hobble home.

Unloading a car from a trailer, even if it's a shove off into the garage, at 6 p.m. is a LOT nicer than limping the car home and arriving at 0200 the next morning. A trailer is just more civil.

if anything happens to the car at the track or on the way home, at minimum you'll have over half the cost of a trailer in your tow bill. Trailer it and sleep good at night. I just got a trailer and I wouldn't trade the peace of mind for the world.

With 190,000 miles you're rolling the dice with every component on the car making the need for a trailer even more obvious.

Use a trailer.

Just curious, does anybody use a tow dolly, and are there any major pros/cons to that?

(one pro would be the ability to use a lighter duty tow vehicle...?)
(one con would be the need to still swap a pair of tires)

One *major* con to a tow dolly is the lack of brakes on 95% of them. so yes, you're towing 1500lbs less weight, but you've given up on the braking safety of 4 more braked wheels. Not to mention, the trailer will be a more stable towed package (assuming correct loading / tongue weight)

If you break something in the rear end (control arm, torque arm, etc.) a tow bar isn't gonna help you, as you need everything to be fixed before you pull it home.

Not that this matters much for our use, but a vehicle with a locking (detroit-style) differential can have serious issues with a tow dolly or being flat-towed. There are numerous first-hand accounts of the locker ratcheting while changing lanes, initiating a tail-wag that often ends up against the guard rail.

One big advantage to 3/4 ton vehicles are the brakes. (The rear brake pads on my 2500 are the same pads used on the front of a 1500) By using a dolly in order to use a lighter-duty tow rig, you shot yourself in the foot twice. Once by having smaller brakes, then again by losing trailer brakes.

Also, a tow dolly requires the towed vehicle to have a license, registration and insurance because it's "on the ground". My insurance company explained that if the car is on a trailer that's hooked to my truck, it's "part of the truck" (as far as coverage). If someone rear ends a car on a tow dolly (and the truck is damaged), you have 3 vehicles in an accident. The car that hit you, your car you're towing and your truck (and the tow dolly as a package). This is how it's been explained to me. I'm not an attorney, etc. So, feel free to check my info, but it could be important for dedicated track cars.

I looked at tow dollys too. The problem for me was cost. New are $700-$1000 and good luck finding a used one in good shape. I paid $1400 for a 1-year old steel deck 16' trailer. The cost difference between dolly and trailer was far surpassed by the utility and ease of trailering.

Just my $0.02....