Not Your Everyday Rollaway Performance Racing Industry

Drew Hardin

August 1, 2021

Not Your Everyday Rollaway

CTech Manufacturing

Spurred by competition, imagination, and the desire to keep sponsors happy, custom tool boxes and pit carts are growing in size, complexity, and functionality.

Competition breeds innovation. That’s certainly true on the race track, but it’s proving to be the case in the pits and team garages as well. Standard-issue tool boxes and pit carts will get the job done, but when a team owner or crew chief can bat ideas around with a tool box or cart manufacturer, the team ends up with a precision piece of equipment that can do so much more than just store tools. Following are some of the coolest custom tool boxes and pit carts from the racing industry’s top manufacturers, as described by the manufacturers themselves (plus one satisfied customer).

CTech Manufacturing

Pit lane in NASCAR is a lot like a really nosey neighborhood. Each team is being compared to the team next to them, and the one after that. This incredible level of competition extends far beyond track limits, starting with pit carts. They have been getting bigger and more complex throughout the years, and they do a lot more than hold tools.

Our ULTRA Cart Dual-Deck is the biggest solution CTech produces for the motorsport market. Looking less like a storage solution and more like a mobile headquarters, this new ULTRA Cart offers the largest observation deck of any pit cart on the market and introduces innovative features to pit cart design.

The ULTRA Cart serves many critical functions: to host effective tool and equipment storage, engineering workstations, sponsor branding, VIP/guest hospitality, and more. It must accomplish all those functions without being a burden on the team in terms of setup and teardown.

The dual-deck design allows teams to host more team members, sponsors, and guests on the actual pit box than previous designs. The expanded sponsor branding boards hanging off the front of the cart offer better visibility for sponsor branding. The pit cart chassis itself also sits perpendicular to the pit wall, which increases pit crew safety and workflow by allowing crew members to communicate and move more efficiently from the front to the back of the pit box.

—Nate Birkenmeier, CTech Manufacturing

A couple of years ago, when the ULTRA Cart Dual-Deck was put on display at the PRI Show, I thought, “This has a quality presence.” You know, it’s hard being right next door to Penske, Hendrick, Gibbs, and all these guys. You’re battling that envy where your sponsors are looking up at the neighbors. We always wanted the biggest and best that we could get.

A lot of the time sponsors bring family members, friends, or wives to the track, and those can be long days, so comfort is an issue. Once you get up top of the ULTRA Cart Dual-Deck, you really feel like you’ve arrived. We have five seats across the front tied to the race team, one row of four swivel seats in the middle row, and three bench seats in the back. All in all, you can fit about 15 people between the individual chairs and bench seats.

From the crew’s perspective, we have a vast amount of room on both sides of the cart to set up tires and move back and forth. The safety aspect of being able to see and communicate freely was an added benefit. That design element took it to the next level. The fact that it’s two stories up and it’s all open, once you have it, you never want to go back.

—Rick Ware, Rick Ware Racing

Badass Workbench

John Benoit of Benoit Racing in Charlotte, North Carolina, visited us at Barrett-Jackson in West Palm Beach, Florida, in April 2019. He had just moved into a new shop and was looking for some quality workbenches and tool storage that would look great and be heavy enough to withstand the day-to-day abuse that frequently occurs in a race team’s garage.

We worked with John to design a custom-built U-shaped workspace that would allow him to do just that. We also built him a teardown table for rebuilding parts, and another mobile workbench to wheel around the shop.

Prior to finding us, John was working off folding tables.

The process was pretty smooth. After getting measurements and the overall idea of how John wanted to bring the shop together, we worked side-by-side with him to provide the most Badass custom workbench for his application. As you can see from the pictures, it really turned out great. We flew in to help with the installation, and John couldn’t have been more pleased with the way it turned out.

—Cody Freeze

Delson Products

I’ve known the owner of R2 Motorsports in Anaheim [California] for years. We go way back. He called one day and wanted to talk to me about tool boxes for his shop. We got together, I measured the space, and we tossed around a few ideas. His shop is laid out in such a way that everything is just a step away and thoroughly thought out. I really enjoy working with people who know what they want and allow me to get their shop to that next level. You have to make things convenient and accessible to make a shop functional.

Along the back wall we built a 38-foot combination of two 10-foot benches, two 6-foot benches, and a 6-foot bench in the center. All our tool boxes are powder-coated, and we use the same 3/16ths workbench tops that we used 30 years ago. Our drawer slides are big and heavy-duty, something like 300 pounds. We use slam-style stainless-steel paddle handles, and all our hinges are stainless. Our tool boxes are built like a street rod.

When we set it up, I gave him air lines where he wanted and lots of electrical outlets. Because everyone is cordless, I set him up with lots of plug-ins up and out of the way, so you can use your work surface as a work surface.

We also built a center island that’s 20-feet long with drawers at the very end. A race shop needs an area where you can sit down on your stool, lay stuff out, and think about what you’re building. Or hold a meeting standing next to what you’re building.

Now I’m building him a chase truck that goes along with same program as the tool boxes to maintain his Class 6100 desert race truck.

—Danny Delamater

Pitboxes.com

Gold Eagle, the parent company of STA-BIL and 303 products, requested four display pit boxes for its trade show booths and mobile displays.

The company wanted the front to be tiered display shelves with a lid for cover during transport. Mounted inside the lids are television screens for product information slide shows. In the rear is storage for extra inventory.

The pit boxes are easily movable, too, with our pneumatic tires and steering.

Also included were optional side display shelves that can be adjusted for height and used as needed for extra display area.

—Ricky Sanders

TechnoCraft

We love to work with our customers, and sometimes that means working with our customers’ customers. When Mike Morel decided he was going to run an NHRA Funny Car, he had a new trailer custom-built for him. Our customer had him work directly with us to make sure we fulfilled his needs with the cabinets and tool boxes.

Mike was very specific about his cabinets and tool boxes and what he needed where. He wanted a tool box in the door opening at the end of the bench. This used to be a challenge for us because our framework didn’t allow for us to put a tool box in the end of a bench. We designed a new frame piece that allows a door or tool box in the end. We also built for him what was at the time a one-off tool box with a left-hand handle, so the drawers could be opened without entering the trailer. Mike could then access some of the most important tools needed for between-rounds service from outside. This base has a double tool box with eight drawers opening into the trailer and eight drawers opening into the entry door opening.

All our tool box drawers are made of .080 aluminum for light weight and strength. Our 3- and 4-inch drawers have 250-pound roller-bearing slides, while our 6-inch drawers have double 250-pound roller-bearing slides.

—Brian Hope

Top Drawer of the Tool Box

The products contained in a race shop’s tool box or pit crew’s rollaway are as uniqe as the operation itself—no two are likely the same. However, as your source for newly released and highly useful tools and gear, PRI presents eight items that all motorsports professionals should consider for efficiency and performance in the workspace or trackside.