Five Towing Tips & Tricks

Five Things We Do When Towing the race truck

We travel 1000s of kilometres to races, often through regional and remote parts of Australia. This means we need to be prepared ahead of time with a vehicle and trailer that can handle the distances.

Towing the very important cargo of the trophy ute and a trailer packed with spares, oils & fluids, tools, and camping gear.  Sometimes there will be just the two of us, and other times we have crew in the Landcruiser as well, and on our last trip to the Don River Dash we also had our dog, Ed-e, with us!

Fully loaded in ‘battle rattle’ we are a race shop on wheels, while also being a self-sufficient adventure set-up. This means, aside from the obvious prep such as packing the items we need for the trophy ute, there are a few other things we do before hitting the road.

1. Ensure roadworthiness of the trailer
   This includes checking and repacking wheel bearings, making sure our tires are good to go (enough tread, correct air pressure), trailer lights and reflectors all work, and the trailer plugs to the Landcruiser are all in good condition and working order.
   
   We have a small water tank on the trailer which we fill up as well, which we use for drinking, cooking, washing up, hand washing etc.

2. Check over Landcruiser
   Making sure all headlights, taillights, side lights, spotlights and interior lights are all working. We regularly service the cruiser and check/clear out the air filter. We also have a pre-filter which goes into the snorkel for when we are driving on dirt roads, and it is quite dusty.

3. During packing
   When strapping things down try and have the side to tighten straps on the passenger side. This makes it safer to check/adjust the load when you pull over, especially if you have to stop somewhere with limited verge.

4. Go the long way round
   Once the car and trailer are completely packed and we are ready to go, instead of just hopping in, we both walk to our seats ‘the long way round’. That is, we walk around the car and trailer doing a final check that everything is closed, locked, tied down, ramps have been put away, trailer lights are working, trophy ute is completely off and that there is nothing else either of us have missed. Kind of like ‘lock doors and cross check’ when you’re on a plane.
   
5. The peace of mind check
   Once we set off, we always have a little stop and check. Usually 20-30 minutes after we start driving. This lets us see if anything has shifted or if there are any straps which have started to come loose as things settle and the wind blows on everything.

These five things have kept us safe and saved us from making too many ‘smooth brain’ mistakes. We might have trouble on the race track, but we rarely have trouble on our travels!

This year alone, we've driven around 8000km in Australia and still have a trip to Perth. This will be the first time across the Nullabor for Amy & the trophy ute!