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As I marvel the 11 feet ramps of the Trailex trailer cannot help but to observed how well everything is designed and refined. Think of the strength that is needed for such long span of aluminium planks to support the entire weight of up to 4500 lb car. No other open trailer comes with such long ramps. Loading and securing a car to a trailer is totally new to me and just a moment of inattention very bad thing can happen. I will develop a check list as well as think through some of the more subtle considerations. For your amusement here are a few images I found on the web.
Buying a tailer is like buying a house. You would still need to dig into the wallet to furnish it. I spent countless hours figuring out what winch to get. As I want to keep it simple and reliable I will get a manual 2-speed winch. The Fulton 3200 lb so far is the winner. It has the best design.
I started with the preference of strap or nylon lines, but digging deeper I realize old fashion 7/32" dia steel cable is the way to go with all things considered.
So much to learn watching this in car video of driving a 70 years old Cortina to the limit. Think of this has a 4-speed gearbox, 4 cylinder engine. You can definitely see his left foot braking.
Another amazing video is Troy Corser riding this 89 year old BMW bike. If I have not mistaken, he rode this bike with rigid rear suspension to the top of podium in the race.
No matter what I did, the link to the second video kept going to the Cortina video. I try a new post to see if the link works and it does. Yet the two different URLs in the prior post kept going to the same video.
I watched them unload Tony Stewart’s stock car out of the transporter at WGI when they did the Tony Stewart/Louis Hamilton car swap. I cringed as they rolled the car out onto those ramps at the end of the trailer as there wasn’t much for stops at the end of those ramps. Tony’s car made it to the ground ok, unlike the picture above.
Why not an electric winch with a remote? Seems that would be more usefully than a manual one.
Like most I set out with a rosy picture of operating an electric winch with a wireless remote so I can adjust the steering wheel as needed. I figure since the ramp angle is so gentle a cheap ATV winch should be adequate. As I did more research I infer most of the no-name electric winch are crap. Since the trailer will be out in the elements carp motor electric/electronic parts tend to die. Also electric winch requires adding a battery to the trailer front. This will be counter productive of what I worked so hard to find a light trailer to stay within the 500 lb capacity. Maintaining and charging another battery is more trouble than its worth for me when I want to keep things simple for maximum reliability. Even if I ignore these a quality electric winch cost circa $600. I would want a minimum of 2600 lb capacity should I need to drag a dead horse or one with injured legs .
The other thing that I realized is rope and strap options are out that I opt for a manual winch. The drum capacity simple cannot support longer length than 20-25 ft. Because of the long ramp and long bed, I need a minimum of 30 ft line pay out.
I noticed Amazon is taking advantage of my location, my purchase history, and my intense research and gives me liberal urban yuppies pricing.
Of all the searches for a number of questions, it turns out this one page in the installation instruction answered most of the questions. I made a call to Fulton to clarify and confirm them.
My current thought is I would load and unload the car by driving up and down the ramp. The winch would be used for extraordinary circumstance only.
Here is a foto that captures the length of the line needed to winch up a dead horse. Additionally you can see that the line will be scraping the rear of the AL deck for a while until the car gets onto the ramp. Note to self - bring some scrap 2x4s.
Good point about the weather and the added weight. I just remember, as a kid, cranking on the winch handle to load my dad’s 20’ boat onto the trailer every weekend of the summer. Seems like that took for ever to get done and a lot of wishing for a power drive...
And, yes, I have seen more than one dead horse being winched onto a trailer...
With potentially a 100ft of cable available to you, if you want, you might want to consider adding a ******-block (pulley with a hook on one end) to your to your toolbox. That way, you can double the capacity of the winch if you need too.
Love it!
Great video showing trailer dynamics. I have seen a few over the years that were in the “exhibit B” mode. Don’t want to be behind them in that mode.
With potentially a 100ft of cable available to you, if you want, you might want to consider adding a ******-block (pulley with a hook on one end) to your to your toolbox. That way, you can double the capacity of the winch if you need too.
The winch does not come with the steel cable. Steel cables has memory. As you unfurling it it tends to coil up and can tangle or at least fights you. I plan to get just a spool of 50 ft. I can be wrong but I think a 3200 lb winch should pull all but a very dead horse (GT4), or a dead hog (Desire) up the ramps.
BTW, I should mention that one down side of strap or synthetic rope is they are susceptible to sun light damage. I will trust a rusty steel cable more than a sun-bleached synthetic rope.
Love it!
Great video showing trailer dynamics. I have seen a few over the years that were in the “exhibit B” mode. Don’t want to be behind them in that mode.
With excessive weight at the rear of the trailer it is like extreme polar moment of a badly designed rear engine car aggregated by long body but very short wheel base. A nice video demonstration the instability.
With the trailer now our track team can ride in comfort. While we are on a tight budget and cannot afford a 18-wheel tractor trailer with custom built race car coach we hardly lack in creature comfort. Most important we have decent AV system allows us to review the day's track action. Our smart team manager scored an Amazon open box of this 22" 1080p LG monitor that is half the weight of the Samsung it replaces. It actually is a TV/monitor so has built in speakers. Since the motorhome has a nice sound system we prefer to beam the audio via Bluetooth to the coach sound system. Here are a few fotos of the new video setup.
watching Babylon Berlin on Netflix - love this scene with the singer singing "Zu Asche zu Staub"
watching the video from Harry's Laptimer output from the iPhone using an Lightning to HDMI adapter
the monitor is mounted on a monitor arm so it can be stowed away when rolling down the road
I was concerned with the HDMI cable entry of the connector that is perpendicular to the back of the monitor. It turns out it and the 19Vdc plug are both free of interference with anything when the monitor is stowed and restrained by the bungee cords.
I give her an inch, she wants a meter. She said she is Europa so she uses metric. Slowly the street car named Desire is getting her way more and more - that is to become a full time track car, and refuses to be driven on the street. She says any car can drive on the street, and it is just plain boring.
This weekend she rode the trailer to PIR and we had some quality time bonding together. We spent 2 nights at the track and drove on Saturday and Sunday. It is hard to imagine life gets getter than this unless you crash. Crash we came pretty close on Sunday as it was a very wet track. Worst is Desire ruined the relative new set of Potenza RE71 running shoes. She spun three times, which the team engineer thinks is due to no rain thread left on the rear tyres. Thankfully all happened at turns that are not too treacherous.
first thing first, we stopped by Costco to get some cheap fuel
about time I am getting my time's worth as all my vehicles have tiny fuel tanks; this time the Sprinter motorhome and Desire got filled up at the same time; the best thing is both filler are on the same side and perfectly spread to align with two pumps; how efficient is that?
Desire is a thirsty little beast ; she obviously has a drinking problem
at PIR on Friday afternoon
guess what? I have never seen an (red on the left hand side) R53 Mini with a motorhome; not just that this is towed by a motorhome, it is also a Sprinter and with the exact same Trailex 8053 trailer - far out!
I have to say, we were through thick and thin together especially today we have mostly very wet track and the windscreen wipers got a good workout. Only the last two sessions out of the six that the track were barely dry but still very cold with wet spots. I am now so crazy with this little car that can and tries so hard. For the first time we ran in the advance group both days. We done extremely well consider the other cars and more than half are instructors in much higher performance cars.
Thanks. It took me forever to decide on the optional accessories. I was a dumb ****. I should have picked up two dual 5-gallon fuel jug carriers while I was at the factory. I now realize it is a necessary setup with a lot of tracks. More and more Desire is having her way and there is little I can do.
Right now I am considering letting her take another step towards being an all track animal. Desire needs a lot more front and rear cambers. She discretely trashed the brand new running shoes to convey the message. I am thinking of a set of Vorshlag camber plates to replace the Ireland Engineering fixed camber plates.
Still more fotos from this weekend camping out at PIR. I arrived in the afternoon of Friday so I could cross the track into the center paddock. I signed up for 2 days of HPDE events. Saturday turned out to be a great late summer track day. Sunday would bring everything from showers with puddle-filled track surface, to wet track, to damp track, to somewhat dry but cold track.
The fotos are a bit out of sequence.
a McLaren
a well equipped Trailex trailer of a R53 Mini owner
his tricked out R53 with air to water intercooler
I still have to bring the Costco tote box that holds Desire's belongings
ready to camp out in Friday night
unloaded Desire so she could stretch her legs
there is the interesting tailer from Australia - more about it later
looking out from the living room window - there would be drag racing that night
instead of takeout burrito I pan-seared a small piece of steak for dinner; I neglected to take a foto of the finished dish
this was taken on Saturday morning in which the day would turn out to be a gorgeous day for driving
I bought the generator in case there is no hookup and I want to use the air conditioner
in this two days event I changed the front brake pads twice (two sets were half-worn to begin with, and both worn down to nothing after one track day); I put on a brand new set for Sunday
I also swapped the front wheels with the rears; the rears still have a lot of thread left before the Sunday HPDE
this front tyres were used on the rear for the very wet track on Sunday which contributed to three spin outs; Desire and I held nothing back throughout the day
reviewing the day's driving
I set up this camera to safeguard Desire from being kidnapped in the middle of the night
this was the forecast for the wet Sunday
I made this for Saturday dinner
this was the Sunday morning in the motorhome
a Porsche 928
all counted there were no less than 7 R53s during these three days at PIR
happiness is a pair of light weight flip flops
this is a very shot clip of the drag race in Friday night
Rather than cherry-picking a segment of a video from the best session I would just post them all. There should have been 7 videos. These were from Sunday that was a dry and cool day. They are in chronological order. There should have been 7 videos. I believe two sessions were not recorded with the GoPro. Desire and I ran in the advance group and half the drivers are instructors. The cars include Porsche GT3 RS, 911 Carrera, 718 Cayman S, Corvette's, Camaro ZL1, latest BMW M3, Subaru WRX, Cobra Mustang GT350, another R53 Mini, and an AMG GT3. We went through a set of half worn front brake pads so we replaced them with another set of half worn set. That only lasted 3 sessions plus a session of wet driving the following day. We also swapped the front tyres with the rear ones as the were very worn by the end of the day. This set of Bridgestone Potenza RE71R only seen 4 track days and the threads were badly feathered. I broke my previous best time in one lap by a mere 0.02 second.
What I got most out of this two days was to be more active with the steering in respond to abnormalities. The second day mother of nature delivered everything from rain, to shower, to partly cloudy. Desire and I gave 110% of our effort and we spun out three times, all occurred extremely faster than I could respond to. While at the time we all wish the rain would stop and the sun come out to dry out the track. When the track was really wet many cars didn't run. The track was soaked most of the day, except we have a almost dry track for the last session of the day. I learnt so much driving on the rainy day.
I want to change the Wilwood brake kit to 11.75" so I can run 15" tyres. The few tyres I'd like to try are Nitto NT01, G-Force Rival, and Toyo Proxes R888R.
The forecast for the second day were very grim. There was little hope the track would be dry.
The sight at the track is equally grim in the morning.
While we all love to drive in ideal conditions I figure I might as well get the most of the situation and learn something from it. I have driven once in rain at PIR this season. This time I would do better and I was less timid. I want to learn to find the rain lines as well as gain the skills and experience of traction sensing. My tyres were less than ideal. The front set were very worn from the day before and I had swapped them to the rear. Additionally the uni-directional tyres were being run in reverse rotational direction which I infer is what you should not do in the wet.
We had 3 spins early in the day and each time the tail snapped around so fast I was unable to countersteer to recover. I think the rather worn left rear tyre hydroplaned in all three instances. Desire stayed on track 2 out of the three. The other one I just lock the brake and did not fight the spin as it could be dicy. I learnt so much driving this day. Towards the afternoon I was driving very good lap time. I countersteered many times throughout the day in respond to Desire getting upset by the slippery track surfaces.
The forecast for the second day were very grim. There was little hope the track would be dry.
The sight at the track is equally grim in the morning.
While we all love to drive in ideal conditions I figure I might as well get the most of the situation and learn something from it. I have driven once in rain at PIR this season. This time I would do better and I was less timid. I want to learn to find the rain lines as well as gain the skills and experience of traction sensing. My tyres were less than ideal. The front set were very worn from the day before and I had swapped them to the rear. Additionally the uni-directional tyres were being run in reverse rotational direction which I infer is what you should not do in the wet.
We had 3 spins early in the day and each time the tail snapped around so fast I was unable to countersteer to recover. Desire stayed on track 2 out of the three. The other one I just lock the brake and did not fight the spin as it could be dicy. I learnt so much driving this day. Towards the afternoon I was driving very good lap time. In fact during the last session I had three laps that were within 0.5s of my all time best laps. I countersteered many times throughout the day in respond to Desire getting upset by the slippery track surfaces.
I have been a bit stressed with the need for a set of typres for the track event coming up, especially should it turns out to be rainy. That is one reason that I am antsy in switching to a smaller BBK so I can run all the wheels I have. For the short term, I just need to go get these exactly 1 months old Potenza RE95R's flip inside out.
I need to go and see Scott to have these tyres flipped cheap
To me these Potenza RE-71Rs don't stand up that well for dry track abuse . I think they make good track rain tyres.
09-10-2018, 11:21 PM
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Additionally you can see that the line will be scraping the rear of the AL deck for a while until the car gets onto the ramp. Note to self - bring some scrap 2x4s.
Our smart team manager scored an Amazon open box of this 22" 1080p LG monitor that is half the weight of the Samsung it replaces. It actually is a TV/monitor so has built in speakers. Since the motorhome has a nice sound system we prefer to beam the audio via Bluetooth to the coach sound system. Here are a few fotos of the new video setup.
Crash we came pretty close on Sunday as it was a very wet track. Worst is Desire ruined the relative new set of Potenza RE71 running shoes. She spun three times, which the team engineer thinks is due to no rain thread left on the rear tyres. Thankfully all happened at turns that are not too treacherous.
