Anybody use a car dolly for transporting your race car? i know a full trailer is way better but will a dolly work? reason why im asking is strorage space at my house. a dolly is way more out of the way.

thanks for the replys!

 

My car is not registered for the street, so a tow dolly is out of the question in California. Other than that, it would probably work fine. Just use a set of wheels with street tires on the rears, not race rubber. One thing, though, all of the tow dollies I have ever used specifically say to not back up with them. I did several times for very short distances, but knowing how many times I've had to back out of gas station parking lots and such with my trailer, I could see it becoming a pain in the *** not being able to with the dolly.

 

from my experience i wouldnt use the dolly again, i used it for a year but it was a pain most of the time.

if the car is lowered a lot its a pain putting the wheel straps on,

also backing up is really hard and when you do you have to retighten the straps which is annoying.

so i wouldnt use it again.

it did fit in my garage with the car on the dolley though. but still a pain to do that all the time.

 

I've been using one for three years now. The negatives: if you wreck badly you can't put it on the dolly; can't back up with it; depending on the state you live in, you might need the race car registered. The big thing here is if it needs to pass emissions depending on what you've done to the car. The nice things are you can find a used one for $500; they take up very little room; and are really easy to move around by hand. I've been thinking about getting a trailer but haven't been too motiviated because of how well things have gone using the dolly. As far as backing up goes, just be aware of this when you pull into places and you'll be fine.

Oh, the other nice thing is that it only weighs 500 lbs so it opens things up as to what can tow the dolly/trailer. Many vehicles can easily tow 3,000 lbs plus gear. Add another 1,000 lbs to that and the list quickly gets reduced.

 

I just bought a dolly, and it has reduced my raceweekend cost by about $50....my truck gets twice the mileage when I'm not towing a trailer (thats heavier than my car) with my car on top of it. The part that sucks is not being able to back up....and it I wreck the car up, I'm stuck. There is gray area concerning what has to be registered in California. The law says that the dolly does not...but the definition of a dolly as far as the law goes is a device with wheels to support a part of the vehicle....like a trailer to support the boom on a large crane. It specifically states that the dolly need not be registered...but I couldn't find anything whether or not the car needs to be registered. I've been towing my car with no plates on it for about 3 months now without any problems.

 

I used a tow dolly for more than 5 years, first for autoxes and then racing. There was a certain simplicity to it, and it was easy to tow. You get used to finding pull-through spaces, but there were some times that you find you must back it up. Not fun.

Your race car would have to be thoroughly balled up to be so bad that you couldn't tow it home on a dolly.

Changing the rear tires became more effort than I wanted, so I went back to using my (light-weight) tandem axle trailer.

 

my roommate used to tow his 4runner on a dolly when we went wheeling. it was a pain in the *** to change the front tires (36's don't fit dollies verry well) but it worked well enough. if you don't have the storage space for a full trailer i'd say go for it.

edit: is that tom's myspace image?