Vince Gee

New car rack but will it work?

On top of the normal day to day work involved in stage races we had another small task to do. Install our new car rack. Normally it would be an easy puzzle of car rack parts. I’ve put many car racks on including many team cars. Team cars require special attention because we don’t always do things normal so it is usually a necessity to be creative when installing a rack on a team car.
We received our new custom car rack created by Toby Stanton of Hot Tubes fame. Toby makes frame building look easy. Car racks are a different story because few are needed/made for US teams. After the crew from Mavic USA brought it out from the East coast for me, I kind of just stood there and looked at it in excitement. Installing it though took a little nerves. Since it was created by Toby without having a car at his disposal and just a few pictures and a ton of notes he had to use a little of his own magical ideas.
So after drilling a few holes directly into the existing VW roof rack we were in business. A little supplemental support for the front of it and we will have a rack that will do the team right. I can now carry 6 bikes and a ton of wheels. More than enough for any race we will do in the US. I can wipe the sweat off my brow knowing the rack works. Good thing as it took a pretty penny to build it. It works. Yeah!

CClinton

Owner of Promechanics.com and long time professional race mechanic.