How not to trailer your race car

[twobone]

http://failblog.org/2011/06/21/epic-fail-video-trailer-drift-fail/

[locost7018]

Ouch!!!!!

[slngsht]

boy, I've had a couple of trailers over the years start to do that on me, and it's a very uncomfortable feeling.

[Croc]

I have never had it happen to me but how do you deal with it when it starts? Gently slow down?

[yellowss7]

I had it happen to me in my 1st year of trailering. Croc, the way you are supposed to controll it is to speed up a bit, or to squeeze the trailer brake controller to engage the trailer brakes.

 

Let me tell you that even if I would have known that it would be hard to do as it happened very quickly.

 

I was doing about 50mph on a downhill section of the NE ext of the Pa tpk. The trailer started to sway and so did the Durango, I went from the right lane, and hit the guardrail on the left lane, bounced off the guardrail as I had cut the wheel to try to avoid it and swerved back and hit the guardrail on the right shoulder. The trailer jackknifed, and luckily the guardrail kept the Durango from going over the edge of a 50 ft dropoff.

 

The rear tow hooks, actually straightend out and the car slide forward about 2 feet. No damage other than the left rear wing hit the inside fenderwell and cracked it. No big deal as that wing later met a few cones autoxing and they did much more damage.

 

I have since added an antisway bar and a weight tranfer setup to the hitch.

 

The Durango was totalled thought.

 

Tom

[slngsht]

I have never had it happen to me but how do you deal with it when it starts? Gently slow down?

 

Exactly what Tom said, speed up a bit and drag the brakes if you have trailer brakes. I was towing a boat at the time with no trailer brakes, so I just sped up a bit.

[MHKflyer52]

I have never had it happen to me but how do you deal with it when it starts? Gently slow down?

I am not an expert but do tow several different types of trailers and if you have trailer brakes on the trailer (not mechanical surge brake type {think boat trailer or rental trailer} that are controlled by the trailers weight pushing on the hitch [i will not own a trailer with that setup]) and a controller in the tow vehicle you should push the manual override to cause the trailer breaks to put a drag on the trailer to make it pull straight behind the tow vehicle and then start to slow the tow vehicle down to a complete stop to inspect the trailer and load as an improper loaded trailer (load has shifted) or the loss of a tire or even a large gust of wind and going too fast or the sezing of a wheel bearing can all cause a trailer to do a death wag like the video depicted. If you happen to have the mechanical type brake system on the trailer you had better catch it quickly and get on the breaks so the trailers mechanical break system loads the brakes and come to a complete stop and figure why the trailer is having an issue.

My read of that video is the tow vehicle was going way too fast for load and type of trailer and is way too small of a tow vehicle to have been towing that size setup to start with, so it is my belief an accident was waiting to occur as it did.

Yes I do realize that there are a lot of people out there that have and due tow trailers with marginal tow vehicles and get away with it but the video shown in this post looks like the tow vehicle was towing a trailer that most likely was meant to be towed by much larger vehicle (think dump truck) and then had the same size and type vehicle loaded onto the trailer which most likely made the combined weight of the trailer and load more than the rated tow value of the tow vehicle but that is just my belief and as I said at the start of this post I am not an expert so take my advise with a grain of salt.

One of my setups and it gets used a lot.

Edited July 22, 2011 by MHKflyer52
Added photo of tow rig and setup and spelling.

[Kitcat]

A perfect storm:

 

inadequate tow vehicle (looks like a BMW 5 series wagon), probly rated to tow 1500-3500 lbs, if that, pulling a 5,000 + trailer/car combo, was probably using cruise control so wasn't able to respond instantly, towed car looks like it's back too far on its trailer so that the tongue is not properly loaded, and it looks like the driver finally hit the brakes, the trailer had inadequate or no brakes and "rear-ended" the tow vehicle and w/nowhere else to go, fell over on its side.

 

Thus far my experiences in my new Touareg "tow rig" have been totally benign (knocking on wood). I'd say Martin's set up shd be able to handle most anything!

Edited July 22, 2011 by Kitcat

[WestTexasS2K]

It looks like car was to far back on the trailer. This reduces tongue weight and is asking for trouble. Top that off with to big of a load for the tow vehicle and it has accident written all over that. Good news, it did appear to be strapped down pretty well.

[jimrankin]

Having had a bunch of diferent tow vehicles and trailers I can say for certain that electric brakes are the only way to go. Surge brakes work really well for straight line stops with even a marginally large enough tow vehicle but are worthless once the two are out of line in a panic situation. Some people claim EB's require too much maintenance and a new breakaway battery every year or two but newer sets seem really foolproof/low maintenance and the new batterys are good for years.

If your shopping for a new or used trailer go for the Electric brakes, set them up for just a bit more trailer brake than tow vehicle brake and your as safe as trailering can get. Won't be long before someone markets a reasonable set of electric disc to go with the radial trailer tires and that will really put some stop back there.