Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Calvin has a monster trailer? As long as I've known he's had one of the smaller trailers in Knoxville's pit area! If you have even seen him load it...the mule touches one end and the tail tank touches the other!

Great subject. I often wondered how a local guy could afford a $20-30,000 trailor, a $5 to 20,000 pit mule or quad, a pit scooter/bike, some tricked out dually or a big ass Kenworth or something and barely make the top 10 in an already thin field? Makes you wonder huh. Where did all the real racers go?

We were at Tulare (CA) for the WoO race in 2009 and McCarl and Saldana got together in turn four, T-Mac tried to slide little Joe and Joey stayed in the gas and took a ride into the fence. T-Mac's victory lane speech had him telling the boing crowd that it was "just goddamn racin right there", classic...

The older I get, the faster I used to be.

Member of this message board since 1997

McCarl is right. If you race locally and are home after the races, you don't need the large rigs. I have always thought the first rule in a budget class should be "No Enclosed Trailers." That could go a long way in keeping cars in the pits. In the early 90's I bought a 32 foot raised roof trailer, one of the first in the area. I thought I was cool and fitting in when I ran my 360 against the 410's, and a big fish in a little pond at 360 shows. Then at a 410 show at Burlington, I watched Jeff Haines beat all the 410's with his 360, worn out Ford and open trailer, and the next weekend Doak Allen had to have his rusted piece of truck jump started before he pulled away with his trophy for winning that nights Late Model feature. It left me wondering why I was making a $300 a month trailer payment. I sold it, and paid cash for a much smaller trailer. To this day, I race with just a 22 foot trailer. I don't have a mule or a quad, but I have a spare wing on top, and everything else I need inside. I have been debating about buying a bent up chassis to throw on top of the trailer for asthetics! Of course who cannot forget Wolfgang and Max pounding the competition with the 26 footer back in the day.

Eric and his new truck and 40 foot trailer aren't around any more but Hillman and Trent still are. Still with the same open trailer probably behind the same pickup. They jackknife in the pits to unload the 4 wheeler from inside the camper shell out of the back of the truck. They consistently outrun many of the outlaw looking teams that visit LOS weekly, sometimes on used tires from those very teams. Best part is they don't even have to unload at the car wash!

I remember several years ago a guy raced at Farmington with a big truck and trailer and some of the nicest stuff you could have. He looked better driving into the pits than he usually did on the track.. He hooked up with John and his low budget operation and suddenly started running up front. The change was drastic.

As John would say, "we ain't racin trucks and trailers are we?".

And that 1 ton dually will get 3 times the fuel mileage on average as compared to a class 8 semi. truck. At $3-$4/gallon for fuel that is a huge additional expense. Sometimes cheaper up front costs you a whole lot more on the back end.

Of course it depends on your budget and the amount of miles you put on a tow rig in a years time. If you're going to put more than 30-50 thousand miles on in a season then the larger truck and drive train will hold up a lot longer between repairs too.

Different people have said the same thing many many times over the years. Now tmac says it and it's the "best quote EVER". Jeez.

Our business owns 2 18 wheelers and a 1 ton dually.

The 18 wheelers get 7 mpg hauling 80,000 pounds...the pickup gets about 10 or 11 mpg hauling a 5-6 thousand pound payload. As we put more weight on the pickup the mileage goes down drastically.

We service the 18 wheelers one for every 4 oil changes on the dually...service costs stay about the same.

WE can put damn near a million miles on the big rig but we get rid of the pickups as soon as they hit 100,000 miles.

We bought a Freightliner with a nice sleeper with 300,000 miles for about $27,500...the last dually cost 45 grand...

We end up operating the big rig cheaper than the dually for our purposes... I do know that trailer size and type of roads/miles traveled does have a lot to do with the cost differences though

Loose is when you hit the wall with the rear of the
car, tight is when you hit the wall with the front of
the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall and
torque is how far you move the wall.

I agree and if I recall correctly, Terry was one of the first Knoxville locals to get a monster trailer. It was used but it still seems somewhat disingenuous for Terry to pontificate on trailer size.

Member of this message board since 1997

Some people will never be happy. You give them $20 and they'll whine about preferring 2 tens vs. a twenty dollar bill.

Does it matter that someone else said it before? Does the saying "there's nothing new under the sun" not apply to most all we talk about in here?

If TMAC was one of "your drivers" you'd be singing a different tune.

Get over yourself already.

I throw out a softball topic and someone has to throw a turd in the punchbowl.

Merry Christmas.