Class A License Types?

Do you race for compensation?

If so it is commercial.

 

If it's been over a year you start all over from scratch.
Fees and all the tests.
Not all states require a CDL to drive anything bigger than a car or pickup.

 

Ding, Ding, Ding. We have the answer.

 

I’m just a simple man but it seems to me if you have the money for a race boat and a truck to haul it that you’d have the money to do everything the correct way and not cut corners. If you’re making money at all it’s a commercial vehicle. Auto racing teams all went through this a few years ago and found out they needed to start running log books and having DOT numbers and everything that comes along with owning a big truck.

 

two things, this is well established in the courts.

If you race for compensation, meaning winning money, then it is a commercial venture. The vehicle that hauls the race car is hauling for compensation, even it is a zero sum gain. The courts have upheld the state's position that the vehicle falls under a commercial vehicle and that has to be registered as a commercial vehicle. If your lawyer says it isn't, he needs to do some research, a lot of people have been nailed and fined heavely for this by different states. Your state may look the other way but another one may rape you for trying to get away with it.

If the vehicle is used only within the state, then the state laws govern. If the vehicle crosses the state line, it is a fed issue and the states follow the FMCSA regulations.

That said, there is no means to protect your assets, LLC is most likely used for tax reasons but not as a shield against liabilities related to the transport of racing equipment. Driving a truck, especially today is a bank on wheels. There are laywers who are just waiting to take a case that will make them millions and while it sounds great to think that your assets are protected, when you are driving that truck, the liablities now include ownership, maintainance and legal driving status.

 

OP has to understand that an LLC is not a do, end all proposition and really does not provide much real legal protection.

If your relatives had someone else transport their equipment; that enterprise is still a commercial transaction.

The last horse in the race is STILL racing for a potential monitary gain and the FCMSA doesn't care IF the horse/car/motorcycle actually makes any money; all that is required is the potential for gain.

Auditor: does your brother compensate you for transporting his race vehicle?

Answer: No, I just get to attend the race for free.

Auditor: commercial, pay up!