Life's
A Drag
Here's
some stuff about taking the Bongo ( or "Freda" as she
is known) to Santa Pod raceway.
The whole purchasing of a Bongo van, was instigated by the need
for a tow vehicle / home from home for our drag racing escapades.
After browsing "What Caravan" and similar mags, we noticed
ads for Bongos. They seemed like a reasonable priced alternative
to the larger motorhomes. Everything fits in it, we can sleep in
the roof, it fits on our drive and being four wheel drive &
diesel it's great for towing.
The trailer was custom made by PRG Trailers, to our specified dimensions,
so we could fit the dragster on it and then the whole thing would
fit into our standard width garage. It's 14 ft long and is dual
axle, which are both braked. It can carry a payload of 1070 kg (
gross trailer mass of 1500 kg ). The dragster isn't that heavy so
she can manage the towing with no problems. I think the max towing
capacity for a Bongo is about 1500 kg , so a bigger trailer may
cause problems.
We bought Freda ( as you may be able to tell from her name......she
is badged as a Ford ) from AVA Leisure as a base vehicle and paid
them to fit a tow bar and leisure battery before we picked her up.
I would love to have the full side conversion that AVA do, as it
would be perfect, but we couldn't afford it at the time ( and still
can't ). I have however just looked at your "what's new"
pages, and was quite taken with the side conversion by Imperial
Cars, but as yet have no idea on its cost. We had considered buying
kitchen units from B&Q and building our own conversion, but
decided it would never live up to the AVA Leisure conversion, and
so still own a totally unconverted Bongo.
We took the last row of bench seats out almost immediately, as the
space was needed for tools and not for people.
We would like to buy an awning, but not the tent type. We need the
kind that is a roll out canopy with legs, so when we are in the
pits we can put the car underneath. As yet none of them seem to
extend far enough for the dragster to fit under without driving
into the legs !
Funny story ........
When we bought Freda, AVA Leisure replaced the right rear light
cluster before we picked her up, as it was cracked. The very first
time we went racing and took Freda was last October ( only a month
or two after buying her ). On our return, we needed to reverse (
with the trailer hooked up ) onto our drive. It was quite a tight
turn and was at full lock when there was a nasty crunching sound.
The jerry can holder mounted on the front of the trailer had completely
smashed the right hand light cluster !!!! We did call AVA Leisure
to see if they had any replacement clusters...................only
to be told, the only one they had, had got a crack in it, and had
been taken off our very own vehicle the month before !
As for our fellow racers, not too many have seen her yet, but those
that have, all think she is perfect for the job. It sure beats trying
to sleep on a pile of tools in the back of a van !!
Best wishes
Helen & Dean ( Team Twisted )
