I broke down just after leaving an HPDE event. The car's not super exotic, but it was more work than a local mechanic would be expected to do or know.

I was about 200 miles from home. AAA said a tow beyond member distances is about $10-14 per mile. Lesson learned, if I'm close enough, I should just pony up for the Premium 200-mile, 1-time annual tow. Unfortunately, they're onto this trick, and it only activates 7 days after you upgrade.

I called a long distance transport, and rented myself a car to get home. To get guaranteed 1-day pickup, I had to sweeten the deal for the transporter. Cost went up. All in all, the total damage ended up being about $750 to get me and the car home.

If I had to do it again, and was thinking clearly:
1. Look into a uHaul truck, auto trailer (approx $110 and 1.10 per mile). If these aren't available in a small town, maybe another $120 for a night's' hotel stay while they bring it up?
2. Get AAA to tow the car to the uHaul and drive it home myself.
That'd probably be about $400-500 to get it home with gas, Uber/Taxis to get me wherever small places I needed.

Questions

• Is it easy enough to push a Miata onto a uHaul trailer with maybe 2 people?
• Are there other options (or companies) than what I'm thinking?

I want to be mentally prepared if it happens again. Not ready to buy a whole personal towing setup though.

 

Do you have a vehicle that can tow your Miata to/from the track? A warning about UHaul, they don't always allow 'one-way' rentals. This might apply to their truck/car trailer combination rental as well. If you rent their gear and drop it off at a different location than specified, then be prepared to be hit with a hefty fee.

 

This happened to me, 750km from home, when the MX cooked its engine. Roadside assistance took car to the local depot, also dropped me at motel (10pm). Luckily bus to airport stopped nearby, booked plane ticket on bus when I knew when I would get to the airport, at Canberra airport waiting for GF before midday, she took me home in her lunchbreak (35km out of town). Hooked up car trailer, drove to MX, loaded, drove straight home. Slept all next day, as didn't get home until 2am or something equally stupid. My trailer has a hand winch, so no drama there.

If you need to get it on a trailer locally rented, check if it has a hand winch, if not any hardware store will sell you one for $25-30 odd. You will also need straps/rope to secure the car on the trailer. I wouldn't be doing any pushing onto the trailer, the winches are too cheap not to get one, and as mentioned you are going to need straps/rope from the hardware store anyway.

This wasn't a motorsport trip, or the car would have been on the trailer in the first place. Actually, the engine in the car at that time was a dog, and it would never have seen the track with it installed! It was only in the car as a stopgap until the intended engine was ready, so this little drama accelerated things dramatically.

 

We push race cars up onto trailers all the time at the track. Usually about 4 guys is best, 3 can do it, but it does depend on their strength and the cars weight.
People are usually happy to volunteer at the track, though maybe not so much on the side of the highway.

Last winter my driver's rear axle broke off during a race, and three guys held that end up while I drove the FWD car up onto the trailer! It was more challenging to get it off by myself when back at the garage.

 

So the first thing to do to prepare is to upgrade your AAA membership to Premiere which gives you a 200 mile towing range. $50 a year buys a lot of peace of mind there.

Beyond that it's going to depend on how frequently you go beyond 200 miles and how reliable your car is. If it's only once a year with a fairly reliable car then maybe you just put a grand in the bank as a "rainy day towing fund". Without a trailer of your own, there's no guaranteed way of solving the problem, it's all going to depend on exactly what happened and where you are. Options include things like:

- the U-haul rental you mentioned.

- get home somehow (ride with a friend who was at the same event?) leaving the car where it is, rent or borrow a tow rig, go back the next day (or next weekend or whatever) and retrieve it.

- got a buddy who towed his street-legal-but-loud/uncomfortable car? Maybe he'll let you put your broken car on his trailer while you drive his car. Be prepared to pay back the favor obviously.

- got a pickup at home, but no room to store a trailer? A tow bar for flat towing it is relatively inexpensive to keep around for emergencies.

And yes, a "come along" winch is cheap and will get the car onto the trailer in a pinch. It's slow and annoying, but it works.

--Ian

 

As far as loading up a car, my friend and I had no problem getting a crashed miata onto a tow dolly by ourselves with two small jacks and some jack stands.

 

Before I had a trailer when I was back in oz, (circa 2004) I spun 2 bearings in our turboed BMW 2002, turn 1 eastern creek.

A mate towed the broken car to the house of the guy we bought it from and I drove his webered 2002 race car as it was on historic rego. Luckily we drove a second car so were able to drive back to newcastle. A week later went down with my uncle and we towed it home with a rented trailer.

 

I use a Roadmaster Tracker tow bar and flat tow my car to and from the track. Attaching the bar to the car involves 4 bolts and is a 1-person job. It's saved my *** more than once.

https://www.etrailer.com/Tow-Bar/Roadmaster/RM-020.html

 

hmm, what base plates did you use for that?
Mounted to the baby teeth locations?

DNM

 

There are "custom" base plates that attach directly to the baby teeth locations. Those remain permanently on the car. If anyone is worried about the aero impact of those, then they could be removed, but I just leave them in place (I'm not good, or fast enough to be concerned about that). The upside is that they make convenient attachment points for tow straps in case you ever find yourself in the kitty litter.

 

Do you pull the driveshaft?

 

I should, but I don't.

 

Sixshooter pulls his with a dolly, rear wheels down, from Florida to MATG with no issues. There are other examples of no issues flat towing a manual transmission Miata.

 

I hear the 6 speed gets plenty of splash lubrication flat pulling, but the 5 speed does not.

 

I've been flat-towing mine since 2016 w/o disconnecting the driveshaft. Granted, I have a 6-sp, which may make all the difference. So far it's proven to be more reliable than several other parts of my car.

 

Miatas are extremely popular toads (two behinds for an RV). If there were going to be any issues with transmissions while flat towing, I am sure we would have heard by now.

 

Flat towing sounds good on paper, but the fact that the wheels are still turning on the car gives a few big reasons why you don't see many people doing it to get race cars to the track. In some/many states the wheels being down means it needs to be registered, which gets complicated with things like caged race cars (smog, safety inspections, fees, etc). Laws may also require that flat towed cars have "trailer brakes", which is kind of a PITA to set up.

From a practical (not legal) standpoint, wheels being down also means tires are getting heat cycles and wear on them (and need to have tread if it's raining), so if you're running R comps then you need to bring those in the tow vehicle and change before/after the event. It also means that in the event of damage to the car that prevents it from rolling you still have no way of getting it home. This is mainly crash damage, but there are mechanical bits on the suspension that can break too (bearings, axles, diff, hubs, tires, 6ULs, etc). The car gets a lot dirtier than on a trailer and picks up a lot more rock chips.

I know a few people who've tried it, after a few events they usually just decide to buy a cheap trailer instead. Most of the time if you've got a tow rig capable of flat towing a Miata, it's also capable of towing a Miata on a 1200 pound trailer.

--Ian

 

Thanks for the input, everyone. I'll look into the tow bar, hand winch and straps. I'm not good enough to worry about my own street tires yet, just lugging the car home, I think.

Going to consider a small Harbor Frieght Electric winch to mount in the garage concrete too, to pull it up the sloped driveway.

Sounds like I wasn't TOO off the mark, just gotta be more mentally prepared. Thanks.

 

In my case those concerns are not preemptive to flat towing. My car is my DD so;
a) It's registered.
b) I'm not aware of any laws requiring "trailer brakes" (and if there are any, the LEO's haven't bothered to enforce them).
c) I "only" have 200tw tires on it, not R-comps, so a few more towed miles is not significant (see "it's my DD").
d) If I damage it enough that it can't be flat-towed, then I'll have it flat-bedded home - and I still have transportation to get myself home too.
e) If you've seen my car, you'll know that dirt and rock chips are not a priority concern for me. You've heard of a "30-foot paint job"? I have a 30-yard paint-job.

My situation may be unique, I understand that others have different needs and priorities. Just offering an alternative.

 

https://www.readybrake.com/state-towing-laws.html

Your profile makes it look like you're in Georgia, where brakes are required on "trailers" of 3000 pounds or higher. Miata GVWRs (this is based on rating, not on actual weight) are generally 2700-2800, so that should be fine. If you ever go out of Georgia though, those states around you with stars require "breakaway" brakes, where the trailer brakes are automatically activated if it becomes disconnected from the tow vehicle.

Trailer brakes don't usually trigger random tickets, but they are the kind of thing that gets checked if there's an accident and things go to court. It's also not unheard of for the fine print on insurance policies to exclude coverage when laws like that are being broken.

--Ian