Everyone expects a racing hauler to carry one or two race cars, but you might be surprised at what else you can find stuffed inside a hauler when it arrives for a race weekend. To get an idea, let’s take a look at the IndyCar paddock area of the Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama during the 2013 Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama race weekend to see what all has arrived.

First of all, we find the typical race car spare parts: tires, engines, transmissions, and body panels such as those seen below.

Now, the crew just needs tools and a place to work on those race cars. It’s pretty handy when your hauler carries an awning, overhead lights, car lifts, and even snap-together raised rubber panels to create a mobile shop floor above the gravel and rain run-off on the paddock pavement like the Team Penske and Andretti Autosports setups shown here.

When you’re not working, tables, chairs, and fan barricades like these Team Penske Verizon ones pictured below help create a comfortable, more private area between practice and tuning sessions.

The fans of course make the entire race possible. Every team and driver is highlighted by a tall feather flag which snaps in the breeze, creating a unique sight when looking down the paddock row. Many teams provide promotional items and fan cards, like these for AJ Foyt Racing driver Takuma Sato, with information about the drivers, teams, and sponsors in front of their hauler.

When it’s time to take to the track for practice, a cavalcade of vehicles piles out of the paddock. Each of these vehicles arrived in the racing haulers. Gasoline or electric mules like this one from Chip Genesis Racing tow many of the cars from the paddock to pit row. Drivers (such as Ryan Hunter-Reay below from back in 2012) and top team members zip around on motor scooters such as these lined up along one of the Penske haulers. You’ll even find the occasional bicycle, like the one pictured in Ryan Hunter-Reay’s area above, leaning up against a hauler now and again.

Finally, once the race cars make it to pit row, the cars and crews are supervised by those sitting in the elevated pit row booths, booths that were brought in on the haulers too.

When the race weekend is over, everything is packed away and on the road again to the next track where the whole process repeats.

So the next time you wonder what all is inside a racing hauler you see pulling into the track you’ll know the answer: a lot!