Project Trailer Part One: Building the Ultimate Open Deck Trailer

Project Trailer Part One:  Building the Ultimate Open Deck Trailer

By Mike Kojima

It’s no secret, we hate towing.  However if you are going to race or drift, there is no escaping it.  Towing is a necessary evil that has to get done if you are going to have fun at the track.  Trailers are a pain in the ass as well.  They are hard to drive with, increasing your vehicle’s stopping distances to dangerous lengths, are easy targets for thieves and have a nasty habit of breaking in far off places where you especially don’t want problems.

Our base frame is strong box sectioned steel.  Our older trailers were cheaper C section and they were bent from years of abuse!  Note all of the support for the deck.  Look underneath cheaper car haulers and you won't find such a well built frame.

Being racers we tend to pour every bit of spare money into our race cars and handily ignore the stuff we use to get the car to the track.  We have also had our share of trailer disasters from flats and burned out bearings in the middle of nowhere, rear ending people because we could not stop, to near serious accidents due to knuckle heads cutting off the racecar on a trailer on the freeway to stolen trailers.

The tongue section is fully triangulated for strength.

We have also had to put up with irritating things like having to take millions of pieces of wood to shim up too steep ramps, to getting a hernia from lifting and carrying super heavy ramps around the side of the trailer, to cars getting hung up half way and doors not being able to be opened due to fenders getting in the way.

This sturdy boxed in section is to accommodate our locking swing away tongue.  This will save storage space and make the trailer a lot harder to steal.

Now you can get an idea of how this part works.

It folds to the side and locks in place.  A determined thief is going to steal anything but he will try to steal the easy jobs first.