Track Day trailer build! - The first Phase

* More pix to come! Weather's been shit so having the ramp door open for photo hasn't been a real option

After begging, borrowing and sharing I finally got a chance to get my own trailer for track duty. I wanted to do an enclosed one so I could use it as sleeping quarters and storage for the track gear.

Small footprint due to restricted parking 5’ wide frame is about as wide as can fit
6’+ interior height, so I can stand
Not to big/heavy - tow vehicle is related for only 3500.
V-nose for that extra bit of storage space inside

With those criteria the it initially seemed like way to get it was going to be a 5’ x X' with extra height added during the build. But man, a 6’ wide interior would be nice and a 6’ wide box gets that 6’ interior height as part of it’s standard box frame..

After pondering it a bit I recalled a trailer build someone had posted on a local forum. It was a 6x10 “narrow track” Basically a 6x10 trailer box set on a 5’x10’ frame. One looses having fully flat walls top to bottom for 100% of the trailer length. But for the most part I get the same functional volume of the 6’x10’ on the smaller parking footprint.

While I could have gone crazy with options from the factory I kept it pretty minimal, though have big plans. The most detailed being electrical.

But for now, it's just "Phase 1" - Floor, and securing stuff. Phase 2, I'll be looking to build out a 120v shore power system for the trailer.

Interior Floor
The floor, and ramp got a hit of textured deck paint after a quick prep cleaning and before any other work. Behr if you want to be specific.

The plywood decking is slippery when pushing a bike. And slippery as all hell with any water on it, so some extra traction is a must in my mind, after nearly dumping bikes a couple times due to very slippery ramps. And of course there’s desire to protect the ply underpinning from abuse and (hopefully) any spills. I say hopefully, since I couldn’t find any info on how any of the deck type paints resist stuff like gas and oil.

“Why not use garage flooring or bed liner?” - Well the costs would be a lot more (almost triple), application a lot fussier and use on wood isn’t really documented that I could find. So my gamble is to use a product designed for wood that *may* resist oil, over a product *may not* stick well to the wood but does resist oil. I know I have wood floors… I don’t know oil will be spilled.

I found that paint a bit tricky to lay down and even first coat as a rookie. The challenge was I’d get some real high spots where the texture (sand like material) would clump up. I ended up using a 4” roller to block out a couple sq. ft. at a time, and then running over the length of that block with a brush to even out the high spots. I got about 70% of the floor done this way.

As I went on - I found that more pressure = more gooder with this stuff. So a 4” roller, with a lot of pressure was good for laying down a 1st coat. With more pressure, it was easier to get an even coating without the need for running a brush over it to knock down clumps and was able to finishes up the floor and the ramp a lot more quickly.

For the 2nd coat, I thinned the paint a tiny bit just to give me a little more working time - just a few sprays from a heavy duty spray bottle on, set to mist. Really the water may have been a placebo and the pressure was the key. But it’s what I did, so there’s that detail.

We’ll see about longevity - but right now the objective of getting down a nice grippy coating on the floor is met. And this stuff, as noted on the cans, does a good job of filling small imperfections in the ply.

I bought 2 gallons per the coverage notes on Behr, but only used one for the floor, ramp and trim.

Floor and trim

Detail of the texture.

Interior Walls
I want to provide a degree of protection to the walls, and things that might rub on them. There’s 18x18” outdoor type, adhesive backed, carpet tiles one can get at Lowes. Perfect… I can work in sections and not buy much more than is absolutely needed.

Securing the Bike(s)
Though the trailer is fit with 6 recessed D ring locations (which in hind sight I would have left out) so I could just strap a bike down - the Pit Bull Trailer Restraint System is just too good to pass up. A buddy over turned a trailer, and I’ve seen the photos of his two bikes still in place, now hanging from their TRS, with the trailer deck about 150 degrees off from level.

Not much to say about installing one beyond following the provided instructions. Just remember load distribution in the grand plan when picking a spot to secure the plates.

Securing the Crap
Along with the track habit, comes a lot of bulky crap that needs some managing.

Pit Bull (who’s stands I use) came out with wall hangers for their stands. There are other stand wall hooks/carriers on the market (Nice Raxx, Pit Posse etc.), each with some pros and cons. But, I’d had some FHE with the Pit Bull ones, and trust their products and quality of manufacture - so that’s the option I took.

Both front and rear stand hangers are attached to a vertical frame member in the nose of a trailer. I’d bought stands with removable handles allowing me to mount the hooks pretty far up the wall as I plan to build a box on the floor of the nose V someday to accommodate a shore power set up.

To ensure the stands stay in place (in a trailer) Pit Bull has an add-on that’s an adjustable bungee and some D-rings. But, I thought I could do better!

So L-Track to the rescue. With a few lengths of L-Track installed I can have anchor points for the stands bungees and a bunch of other stuff as needed with the ability to move those anchors as needed in the future.

I did a couple segments, run vertically in the nose that form an anchor for one side of the stands and tall items like a sun shade.

Then there’s a couple 6 foot segments run down the walls, parallel to the floor. In my trailer the walls studs are 16” OC, I used the "Aircraft Style Seat Track”. It fits the standard L-Track stuff, just a different cross section and (handily) is predrilled at 4” intervals vs. the 5” intervals for the ‘normal’ L-Track I used in the nose area.

L-track also has single point versions, 6" to 12' rails in various pre-cuts depending on where you track it down. USCargocontrol and McMaster-Carr is where I sourced various segments.