A fresh new design to cure an old problem

12/9/05

his month my tech article is a little different, as it will have nothing to do with my dragster or building engines or some new parts. Instead I want to feature a product that will make GETTING TO THE RACES a lot safer, and a lot easier on tow vehicles.

I know a lot of the readers of this column are actual competitors at drag strips across the country. With that in mind, most of you have seen the continual change in what racers are using for tow vehicles and what they are hauling their cars in. It used to be crew cab pickups, and then more and more racers were opting for older motor homes to make the weekend more enjoyable for the whole family. Then came the diesel pushers for more power and to have enough horsepower to tow trailers with two or more cars inside the trailers. Now the pit areas are full of motor homes and enclosed trailers.

There is one thing in common with almost every one of these rigs. The rear frame and likely the entire rig are now overloaded. This causes all sorts of problems, from bent rear frames to cracking frames and cross-members and ultimately the sidewalls will be flexing, coming loose from the framework and the value of the motor home plummets downward.

The first thing any enterprising racer would do is to weld more braces in the rear frame and hitch area and buy stronger lift bars for their equalizer hitch. Will this help? The answer is “sort of, maybe, for a while”. The frame will just break in a different place where the bracing ends and the sidewall flexing will continue no matter what you do to stiffen things up. This is true on every Class-A gas motor home I have ever seen or owned, most diesel pushers and every Class-C ever built.

The answer to the problem is as simple as it is complex. The answer is, “take the weight off the hitch.” Sounds easy but how can it be done and still be used as a tow vehicle? A touring professional exhibition racer came up with a design that was quite simply, “the answer racers needed.”

The Trailer-Toad was “his answer,” so his Class C motor home would survive the thousands and thousands of cross-country miles he was required to travel while towing his 8,000+ pound trailer to drag strips across the country. He needed a way to support the heavy tongue weight his trailer had (in excess of 1250 pounds) without tearing up his Class C motor home.

The Trailer-Toad is a very unique piece of equipment that is engineered to be a load-bearing equalizer hitch assembly. The Trailer-Toad is an extension of the existing receiver hitch you are currently using. It hooks directly into the receiver and is designed to carry the tongue weight of the trailer, take the weight off the hitch and return the balance the motor home was designed to have.