Learn me: Apartment Living + Racing Cars

I've always lived in a house my entire life, and have had garage space to store my autocross wheels, quickjacks, normal jack, jack stands, etc. With that, I have always had space to swap from my daily wheels to my autocross wheels at home, and drive to the event. 

An opportunity has presented itself where if I were to take it, I would more than likely have to live in an apartment/living space without a personal garage, meaning I will not have space to swap my daily tires to my autocross tires at my new home. I will also not have room for my quickjacks, which I'm most disappointed about but the opportunity is good enough for me to give that up temporarily. But most places will have some sort of patio that I can stack my autocross wheels at, so I'm not super concerned about storage for them. I will be downsizing the "garage" by a lot if I were to move.

I can fit the wheels, jack, impact, and torque wrench in my car just fine, and I wouldn't mind doing it "trackside", but I'm stuck at how I'm going to transport all those items from the living/storage space down to the parked car. There are tire dollies that take up minimal space, but I'll have to make two to three trips up and down to transport everything. Are there any products out there that would allow me to transport 4 tires and a jack easily, and fold up for storage? 

Something like this, but folds up because lolnostorage: 

Alternatively, am I being silly? Should I "give up" autocross until I get a garage? I'd rather not, I've gotten pretty good at attending an event a month for the past 4-5 months, I've missed one month and if I move I'll have to skip another month, but overall I'm really happy with my once/month schedule and I'd hate to quit something that just gained momentum. 

Tire trailer and a storage unit?

In reply to Apexcarver :

I've considered that, but I'm not sure if the extra money for a storage unit would be worth it. I don't have many large worldly posessions that would make that an economical choice imo. 

I road raced (ITB) for 3 years while living in an urban (Los Angeles) cave / apartment with an open parking space. It is doable but a bit concerning in re to crime. Tires etc were kept in the small patio, tools in small closet. If you have the $$ for a storage unit that would make it more doable.

You can probably find places like this in most large cities, this one happens to be in Chicago.

https://gearheadworkspace.com/

In reply to L5wolvesf :

Don't think I'm super concerned about crime, the autocross wheels are stock wheels and are ugly as hell. If I'm living on the second floor, that basically keeps it secure. Tools for sure will go in the small closet. 

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Great, I'll take a look around for one of those! Maybe if I can just get buddy buddy with someone in the region's SCCA I can store tires at their place, too. 

In reply to hunter47 :

Here's the reality of a storage unit, You're only going to be using about a quarter of the space, unless you discreetly use it as a garage to work on the car as well. 

I would reach out to local autocross groups and see if any current members would be interested in going in on the unit with you. I don't see why it could not be split amongst three or four people access to most storage units is done via key code and then the physical key to enter the unit itself. 

That's the route I would look into as it could easily become something that is less than $50 a month. If you find that it increases camaraderie amongst the guys that you're sharing the unit with then you all could look into and consider renting a garage together, That's when the benefits really start to happen as you have people to help with more involved jobs and to motivate and challenge one another to stop dragging ass on projects. 

In reply to captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

This is a good point, thank you. Would also help because I wouldn't know anybody up there, so would help me make friends (or enemies) really quickly.

I am spending close to $500 per month for 900 square feet of storage and workspace.

It is doable but you have to make concessions, like living a half hour away from your toys.

Get an apartment with a large closet or even a second bedroom, and then buy a hand cart from Harbor Freight to haul the tires and equipment back and forth.

The other option is a lot of apartment complexes do have garages. when I was apartment living, 4 members of my club all lived in the same complex because they did have garages.

The other option is befriending a fellow car guy and pay him a little to store the stuff in his garage. 

Third option is the said storage unit. I did that in denver and paid $60 a month for a 5x10. I had a cart that made it easy to get in and out. There was an elevator so no big deal getting it up and down.

Other possibilities:

1) Run street tires and don't swap.

2) Find someone with a garage that will store your stuffs in exchange for codriving your car.

3) Make an arrangement to codrive someone else's car.

In reply to stuart in mn :

I already planned on this, the content of the thread is what kind of cart should I get to avoid making 2-3 trips. I want to just load the wheels, jack, impact, and torque wrench once and then take the elevator to the bottom and load the car. 

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/us/b-g-racing-folding-wheel-tyre-trolley-2005350/

This looks like exactly the type of trolley I want, especially because it folds up. 

But it seems like the best option is to find someone to go dutch on a small storage unit for storage + work area.

I'm a big fan of keeping it simple.  A hand truck with ratchet strap to hold the tires on is easy peasy.  A pair of scissor jacks could live in your car.  

No special equipment required

In reply to hunter47 :

Those that I know who have an apartment and a race car tend to  buy a Barely mobile Mini-van for scrap metal prices and park adjacent to the car at the apartment. 
 One other possible solution is off site storage. 
     

In reply to hunter47 :

That looks really cool! But at 600 (plus shipping?) how much would a local small storage building be?

Any way of renting at a different apartment with garages on site?

Motorsports are great, Ive been involved for almost 20 years (off and on, and yes, I know that's nothing compared to most here) in various ways. But, as stated, there were the 'off' times when I had to make a decision to step away for a while. In 2013 my suv got totalled and I was driving so much that I made the decision to step away from motorcycle dragracing and get an economical car for the time (500+ miles a week, I literally saved enough on gas that that was my car payment). It sucked, but you got to sometimes.

If youre in a position to take a great job or something, go for it bro. And hopefully the tire/garage situation isnt too bad and you dont HAVE to walk away, especially since youre talking about how much youre doing it this year.

Just keep it simple like some guys have stated, it'll all work out.

In reply to hunter47 :

I don't have a picture of my old setup but it was a basically like furniture dolly with a plywood sheet screwed into it. I put a metal pipe in the middle and then a couple of brackets to hold in the rest. I think the whole thing was $200 because I went with the better casters. 

hybridmomentspass said:

In reply to hunter47 :

That looks really cool! But at 600 (plus shipping?) how much would a local small storage building be?

Any way of renting at a different apartment with garages on site?

Motorsports are great, Ive been involved for almost 20 years (off and on, and yes, I know that's nothing compared to most here) in various ways. But, as stated, there were the 'off' times when I had to make a decision to step away for a while. In 2013 my suv got totalled and I was driving so much that I made the decision to step away from motorcycle dragracing and get an economical car for the time (500+ miles a week, I literally saved enough on gas that that was my car payment). It sucked, but you got to sometimes.

If youre in a position to take a great job or something, go for it bro. And hopefully the tire/garage situation isnt too bad and you dont HAVE to walk away, especially since youre talking about how much youre doing it this year.

Just keep it simple like some guys have stated, it'll all work out.

yeah, the cart is just an example. Maybe I'll fab something up before moving. 

So... the job will be in the Seattle area. Any apartment with a rentable garage would be way out of budget for me. 

Luckily, there is an outdoor karting track nearby that offers arrive and drive league and endurance racing, so maybe I can forgo autocross for now and take up some wheel to wheel karting. I won't have to pay for maintenance or wear items, either. Typically the same price I'd pay for autocross/time attack pricing, as well. 

In reply to hunter47 :

For me your two choices are:

1. 200tw tires that you daily drive on.

2. Kart league.

Me I would try both. Slap a set of 200tw tires and do a couple of autocross events, while also doing a couple of Kart league events and then decide which one you lime best.

You may have a third option of seeing if you can codrive with someone who is looking for a codriver to offset expenses.

In reply to Tom1200 :

I'd love to have 200TW tires to daily on, but I currently have RT660s as my autocross set and I'd rather not daily on them in the PNW. 

Maybe I could sell off the RT660s and get me a set of Hankook RS-4. 

Or I could try out some rallycross? I'm sure that there are some tires that can withstand inclement weather daily driving and still allow me to have fun on the dirt.

Is it safe to assume you would be living in this apartment alone? Is there a compelling reason you couldn't use a cart like the image in your original post and just park it off to the side of the living room, bedroom, dining room, etc? Nothing wrong with having your racing junk out in plain sight.
When I was in college I always had nearly that amount of floor space taken up by bicycles and/or tools etc because I certainly wasn't going to leave a bike worth more than a kilobuck locked up on an outside rack.  

In reply to newrider3 :

Nope, would be living with ladyfriend and dog. 

Otherwise I wouldn't be in this predicament haha, tires + tools would be in my room if that was the case.

I think most apartment complexes will give you grief if tools and tires are stored out in the open, so I suggest getting some tire totes so they can be stored inside.

Costco has awesome convertible hand trucks that turn into carts.  But honestly I'd just run 200TW street tires and not worrying about being FTD and chase the experience.

hunter47 said:

In reply to Tom1200 :

I'd love to have 200TW tires to daily on, but I currently have RT660s as my autocross set and I'd rather not daily on them in the PNW. 

Maybe I could sell off the RT660s and get me a set of Hankook RS-4. 

Or I could try out some rallycross? I'm sure that there are some tires that can withstand inclement weather daily driving and still allow me to have fun on the dirt.

You can switch to Continental ECSs if they come in your size. Not as much grip as an AX 200TW but almost as much as an endurance 200TW (GRM tire guide backs me up on this) and can be daily driven in the rain no problem. I had to switch to them since nearly every summer autocross day where I live has a downpour at some point.