Phil, Do you have any type of a race name or markings on your HM or trailer now?

We leave ours all white with nothing on it other than an NHRA sticker on the back of the trailer. Our friends have a Toter and trailer with their family racing name on the door of the truck and got stopped in California last year. It opened the door to a whole bunch of crap for them. The Highway Patrol said they had to have DOT numbers and a CDL since they race, have their name on the rig & win money and trophies. I still wonder though if they have their truck registered under their racing name or LLC. I know this is a whole other topic of discussion but thought I'd bring it up since you say you race. The MH's seem to blend in to the crowd a lot better that we do in our trucks.

That auto shifter control stuff is cool. I would like to ride in one of the auto rigs one day.

Ive heard of cases like DeepVee has mention - but i don't have any real knowledge of anyone i know having been stopped.

I've HEARD of situations where TxDOT or DOT waited outside a track and pulled over privateers - and wrote them for NON CDL and failure to maintain DOT compliance....the case was made that the cars (inside the trailer) had stickers on them & even if they were CONTINGENCY stickers you were still getting "paid" (commercially?) to race.

I don't want to side track too much but it all seems to come down to weather you'd have to claim prize money as income and you can't write off as a business expense. Most all non-professional racers would have to claim it as income if they don't have an LLC. This is why I think the family I know may have gotten ticketed since their stuff may have been registered to a racing LLC. There was a good discussion on this on one of the Vegas sites since NV was ticketing a lot of rigs a while back. These are from an FMCSA guide book.

I race but it is club racing and no cash, trophies, or anything is awarded. PCA, Nasa, etc road course racing. Sebring, Road Atlanta, Road America, Watkins Glen sorta road course racing. No contingency stickers. Just gentlemen racing. No money involved other than the expense of race tires every weekend and travel expenses and then of course all the crash damage. Yes, we do occasionally crash our cars, and Porsches are easily totaled due to the many compound curves in the monocoque chassis.
So no risk of a challenge about getting money and therefore no contest about a commercial license.

....NOLA?, MSRHouston?, MSRCresson?, Hallet? TWS?
The trailer i tow is for a buddy that runs an RX8 in NASA TTC/D.

now wait a minute - i know NASA (sponsors) provide contingency money and parts (brake pads & tires)....its my understand that these can be construed as payment or purses.

Careful. These gentlemen will make you an expert and put you in a truck in short order!

Nope, I think you guys might be all wrong. I have a friend that is a Federally licensed commercial vehicle enforcement officer working in Minnesota. He knows the federal motor vehicle codes like no other. We have talked about this at length. He claims the language is "in furtherance of a commercial venture." Nothing about getting money or prizes. He knows there are plenty of cops that think it's prizes. He says if you put a sticker on your car for "Acme Muffler Service" and take it to the strip, or road course, you're now commercial. Period. End of story. Or put "Acme Muffler Service" on the door of your tow rig, boom goes the dynamite. You're commercial. Period. End of story. No RV plates allowed since you're not "recreational." All, and I mean ALL, commercial vehicle laws apply. Over 10k gross COMBINED weight, boom, you are now in the big leagues. Lots and lots of commercial regs. My son used to drive (no racing, no prizes, hahahaha) in TTU (at least I think that's the class, I was just the pit crew) NASA. I hated driving around with that car in the trailer knowing we could get some serious trouble. The only thing I let him put on the outside was a Chevy emblem sticker. Fortunately we never got stopped, and he's now sold the car.

Let's keep calling coaches that have a deck on the back for pulling a 5th wheel or goose neck a "Toter" or "Toter Home." Let's call the rigs that only have a bumper tow hitch a "Truck Conversion." Thanks!!

Search Facebook for "Winsor Corvette"

So no commercial related stickers on car, truck conversion, or trailer other than just generic stuff and it is not commercial. Any sort of promotional stuff related to a business and then you are commercial. Thanks for clarifying the toter vs truck conversion thing.
And Petrol, you are right. I already have a short list of trucks I am considering.

And Bob, your sons car is super bad ass cool.

Thanks, it is a very fast road car. We ran the "One Lap of America" One Lap of America in 2012 and he got 5th overall. Not bad for never having run that event before. And he was 24 years old and paid for the whole car himself. He got best rookie award too. We ran "High Planes" with the Porsche club a couple weeks before. I wonder if you were there? There was only 1 Cup Car there. And we were running street tires since that's what the One Lap requires. The Cup Car was the only guy faster than my son that weekend. And there were lots of Porshce's. I don't know his lap time. He might have it around somewhere, I'll try to get it. The One Lap went to High Planes that year so he wanted to learn the track. I think it helped.

Back to Truck Conversions. When I was shopping for a truck my son was an owner/operator. He had driven for a couple companies before buying his own truck. He tried to get me to not consider auto shifters. He said any real truck driver rows his own gears. I developed a bit of a relationship with the service manager at the local Kenworth shop and picked his brain on this issue. He said he couldn't remember ever taking apart an auto shifting trans. He said they just don't have any issues with inside the case because drivers can't mess them up. He said they have an occasional issue with the wiring connections on the outside of the box. And the solenoid can wear out and/or fail. But he said these issues never required removing the trans. He said the fleet owners seem to prefer the auto shifters because their drivers can't mess up the trans. Now that I've owned my truck about 8 years and 65k miles I really like the auto shift. It's just so much easier to not have to deal with rowing the gears. I'm 29k lbs. without the trailer. I think if I was rowing I would be able to skip some gears. So that's a bit slower with the auto since it will not skip gears. Oh well. Mine is a 3 pedal so I have to use the clutch pedal to get it rolling and then don't touch it again until almost at a stop. I've never driven a 2 pedal. I know a guy that had a Freedom Line auto shift trans in his International. He had an issue and the shop did a very poor job trying to figure it out. It ended up costing him a ton because of the misdiagnose and wrong work. In the end I don't think the issue was that expensive and it did get fixed and he drove it for some time after that before selling the truck. I've heard they aren't selling the Freedom Line trans in the US anymore so it might be harder to find qualified techs for them?

I was in Michigan this past summer and struck up a conversation with a truck driver there. Michigan allows much higher weight trucks than the rest of the country. He told me his last truck had a C12 Caterpillar and a straight 10 manual trans (same as my trans but not an auto shifter). He said he was always 150k lbs. all day everyday. He said it handled the load no problem. Now, there are no mountains in Michigan so maybe it might be a bit harder at 150k in the mountains. But that makes me appreciate the power these rigs have. I've heard that the diesel pusher engines that they claim are 350 or 400 h/p really don't put out that much after they attach all the accessories and especially the hydraulic cooling fans. Kind of like how they used to measure h/p years ago on muscle cars. Putting the engine and radiator up front seems to have positive effects on the actual power we're able to use.

Yeah, we run in the mountains all the time, almost every where we go is up and down. The 75-80 MPH toy hauler boys fly by us on the flats then we kill them in the hills. :D We went to Tulsa, Knoxville then back to AZ over the summer. Driving out on the plains was interesting and kicked our overall average fuel economy up a little. Even with a 66-MPH cruise though we were constantly passing semi's in the small hills out East.

We do get knocked down on the really big climbs here in the West but we never go below 7-Low (9th) on the interstate. I try to pull up at 1,700 RPM with the Detroit and will let it go to 1,500 before I grab another gear. Detriot says we really start making power from 1,800 to 2,200 but I don't want to go there.

What kind of RPM's do the auto's pull up at? I'm not sure if the Cat's & Cummin's have similar torque curves.

Bob -

Are you saying your manumatic won't skip shift? Or are you saying the manumatic is slow?

DeepVee -

While i haven't recorded it or paid close attn to know the precise upshift point,
Im CERTAIN it doesnt run more than about 1550 before it upshifts....depends on how hard my foot is in it.

You guys are making me dizzy! Bush Pilot, yes I have raced at NOLA, NO Problem, MSR Cresson, Msr Houston, Hallet, High Plains, Road America, Road Atlanta, Barber, Sebring, and Watkins Glen. Also did the BBORR race in the Big Bend area last spring. Ran my 360 Ferrari there and had a blast. Easy, no other race cars to crash into. Do I love fast cars? Another topic all together. This Class 8 conversion is to facilitate my love of cars and trucks. To get me to the race track to play with race cars or Mtns(Colorado and Utah) to play with other Hummers on the rocks. Or trees, rocks, mud holes, and Mtns, in ARk, Tenn, and KY.
Keep it going guys, I am soaking it all up.
Listening in the SWAMP,
Phil

Deep Vee,
Forgot to mention that I only have generic logos on the trailer. No logos on race car. Just race #, class and such.

Don, my trans won't skip shift. I've got the Eaton 3 pedal autoshift 10 speed. It's a Gen II. I'm told the trans is the exact same thing as the manual straight 10. The auto shift stuff is all on the outside. It starts from a dead stop in 2nd gear, unless I push the up or down button to start in 1 or 3. It won't start in anything higher than 3 though. It upshifts at about 1550 on flat. It'll hold the gear longer if I'm climbing.

Phil -

1st: this is not an endorsement.

Keep an eye on Dixie Auto Brokers (in Hohenwald, Tennessee) He usually has some pretty nice used coaches & toters.

Dixie also lists/shows on eBay under username KR58

I know that I've mentioned 'em before but Flying A Motorsports is where i found ours.

Don,
Thanks for the heads up on Dixie Auto Brokers. I daily check many listings including Dixie and have found a few that I like. But, my MH is still here for another three weeks before getting it to Lazy Days body shop in Fla. Need to repair recent crash damage( top taken off by train trestle) before getting another rig. Need to get one rig away before dragging home another one. Taking a risk losing a couple that I am really interested in but what happens, happens, and it usually it happens when the time is right. I have narrowed it down to a twin screw, at least a 450HP Merc, 40K hitch, and roughly 32 ft box. Do not need a 42 ft long rig but not ruling anything out.
Continue to send any thoughts along to me. I am a sponge and appreciate the advice you guys have already given me.

The gentlemen at Dixie and RacingRVs were both great to work with. I just gave them my wish list and they e-mailed me whenever they had something that might fit the bill.

It is nice to have guys in the industry on the look out for you. Sometimes rigs become available that never get listed on the internet.