F150 drag trucks and enclosed trailers

For the guys racing trucks do you use enclosed trailers or open trailers? I was wondering how much room is left when you stuff a 79 F150 in an enclosed trailer.

jasonf wrote:For the guys racing trucks do you use enclosed trailers or open trailers? I was wondering how much room is left when you stuff a 79 F150 in an enclosed trailer.

Not much at all.
My truck has a wheelbase of 117" and an overall length of 16'. The width is where it really gets tight though.

Unless you're an 80lb midget, getting out of the truck after driving it in is nearly impossible,.....UNLESS you have a jump door on the road side (which I have on mine).

FWIW,....
When I was in the market for a trailer, the jump/escape door was the determining factor on my purchase. If it didn't have it, I wouldn't buy it.

Long story short, there's very few companies that make trailers with an escape door that's low enough to get the door open on my truck. The bottom edge of mine is 11-12" off the ground. MOST el'cheapo trailers that do have this type of door as an option, is 14-15" off the floor. The only way to get my door open was to (ghetto)drive up on a couple of stacked 2x8's. Wouldn't no way I was going to do that.

I ended up with a United UXT 28' tag rated @12,000lbs. Payed more than I wanted, but I think I ended up with a good trailer.

OH,......that's something to keep in mind as well (if you're considering buying) is that most 24-28' (steel) trailers weigh between 4500-5000. You need a minimum of 5000lb axles to support the load. I opted for 8-lug 6000lb axles (w/16" 8-ply tires) to give me some extra carrying capacity for my gear and also a little more peice of mind when traveling.

Keith is right on target with what he said. I could get my '78 bronco in and had room for kids quads and a tool box in the '28, but getting out was a pain. My solution was to winch my bronco in, walking besides and steering thru the open drivers window. That actually worked really well, another thing to make sure of is height. Make sure and measure your truck before you start trailer shopping, and like Keith said, keep the weight issue in mind as well.

I bought a 24 ft enclosed to haul my f-150 4x4 and it is 8 ft wide inside getting out of the truck is a problem just like the others said my solution was to remake my hinges and made the door removeable no problems now just lift the door off and drive in. also like they said you need a minimum of a 10000 lb rated trailer for hauling a truck.

It would be a lot of work, but if someone was building a full chassis drag truck they could always rework the body shell & downsize it to a 7/8 to 5/8 scale truck body. You would gain some room in the trailer, and have a lighter truck that would push a lot less air going down the track.

Great info. Thanks for the replies.