Garage Star Tire Rack

Does anyone own one or have any experience? Versus the cost of a hitch and trailer to take my spares to autocross, this looks like a godsend. I just haven't found any reviews.

I thought about getting one for RallyCross until I realized that you can just open your trunk lid and ratchet strap the tires into the gaping maw that barely fits your luggage otherwise.

That's what I did too. Jack and everything I needed to swap tires fit under the tires.
Learned it from someone here.

I thought you were supposed to heave the tires directly onto the trunk lid with a sickening thud/crunch sound as the lid buckled.

I did the open-trunk thing when I autocrossed my Answer. A few catches:

There's a limit to how much tire you can fit back there. I could squeeze 4 205 width Victoracers, but only 3 225 width Hoosiers. That meant one tire rode shotgun, on top of/behind the folded-forward passenger seat.

Yes, you can carry stuff in the trunk underneath the tire rig, but in the open-trunk method, anything there will get completely soaked when it rains. Also, your entire trunk will get soaked when it rains.

After rearward visibility, I think the most annoying catch (which would apply to both the Garage Star and the open-trunk method) is that you can't get to the trunk contents after you've mounted up the tires. Forgot to load the jack handle? Gotta take the tires off.

It's a surprisingly reasonable solution, but the car does become noticeably tail-heavy, and there are a few some gotchas.

I had a DeLan hitch and a tire tail, but eventually grew to hate changing tires twice at the event. Now I either drive on the race tires or trailer the car.

peter wrote: There's a limit to how much tire you can fit back there. I could squeeze 4 205 width Victoracers, but only 3 225 width Hoosiers. That meant one tire rode shotgun, on top of/behind the folded-forward passenger seat.

This was actually my main concern with the trunk thing. These would be my spares, incase I somehow got a flat or bent a rim, and since my auto-x/dd wheels and tires are very different than my spares, I'd feel better having all 4 to switch over if something happened. I'd seen a lot of the open trunk method before, but wasn't sure how much it could really hold.

I also have this picture in my head of hooking the ratchet to the wrong place and breaking more of my car than necessary. Yes I'm over thinking a bit, but it is my daily driver, so I'm a little paranoid with it.

I do have a folding hitch carrier, like for hauling deer or coolers from camp, I considered if I went with getting a hitch, but seeing some complaints about the ride with a tire tail, I'm not sure how good of an idea just hanging that weight directly off the back of my car is.

I think I'm just over thinking my first season of auto-x, but if life has taught me one thing in my 28 years, it's expect the worst case scenario.. Ideally, I'll just have a support vehicle, but schedules don't always match up.

Just take the trunk lid off! Saves autocross weight as well