Sway Control for RV or Trailer

In 1955, Jim Hensley was a young army soldier from Illinois stationed in Colorado when he was granted leave to go home for the birth of his first child. Naturally, he wanted to take his wife and baby back to Colorado, so he bought a 30 foot house trailer.

Money being scarce as hens teeth, he couldn't afford the Reese brand hitches that were on the market, so he went to the shop where he'd worked before the Army, built himself a hitch and bought a used trailer dolly and hooked it up between the car and the trailer to hold up the trailer tongue. That's how he started the thousand mile trip with his wife and 3 weeks old baby. Hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, you know?

Well, about 40 miles into the trip, one of the dolly tires blew. Yikes! That was bad. He loaded the dolly into the trailer, made the connection without it, and had to make do without it for the rest of the trip. Oh - my - god!

Can you imagine that trip? The nose of the car up in the air, the rear end nearly dragging the ground, and the trailer fish-tailing all the way? I can just imagine those white knuckles - I shudder to think of it. They made it, but five months later he was shipping out to Korea and so the family and the trailer went back to Illinois the same way.

That's how Jim started thinking those Donny Deutsch words: "There's GOTTA be a BETTER way!!!"

Well, life goes on and Jim did the things that Dads do to take care of their families, so although he'd had some ideas and done a little testing, it wasn't until 1970 that he was able to really sink his teeth into building a better hitch. That's about the time that he started selling travel trailers on his used car lot, and those white knuckle memories got him thinking about how to make it safer to tow a trailer.

A couple of years later, he built his first prototype, but with the huge increase in business he just didn't have the time to work on developing his idea.

It was around 1976 when he finally was able to run a patent search and figure out that his idea was new and unique, but life has a way of handing us lemons, and Jim got a huge one. His wife died of cancer the following year, leaving Jim with 2 children at home and a business to run. Hitch development took the back burner again.

He finally completed the design idea and got his patent for it in the late 1980's almost 25 years after that first "There's gotta be a better way" moment.

Well, patent in hand, Jim decided he would manufacture and market it himself, and Central Innovative (CII) was born and the first Jim Hensley Hitch, called the Eliminator Towing System, was sold in August of 1992. it wasn't too long before somebody got really excited about how GOOD this new product was, because Jim was asked to sell his patent.

He agreed to license it (Donny would be proud of him for that!) and the rest is history.

After 14 years of working on new and better ideas for hitches and brake controllers, while Sean Woodruff spent 10 of those years as Vice President of a manufacturing firm, Jim and Sean formed ProPride, Inc. to manufacture Jim's best hitch ever:

The ProPride 3P Hitch

Next time we take our wagon out for a festival, it's going to be pulled with a ProPride hitch or it's not going.

Now I don't know a whole lot about the engineering dynamics of trailer sway, other than I hate those white knuckle "omigod I'm about to die" moments like when a big truck passes you and the wagon tries to drag you into the ditch or into oncoming traffic.

So when I read about the ProPride hitch, the first thing I did was (yeah, you guessed it) GOOGLE IT! LOL

Turns out there's a lot of people who are so in love with it, you'd think it was made outta gold or something. I read and read and read about it in RV forums, and couldn't find anybody who said anything but good things about it.

So I showed it to my husband and asked him if he thought it would help with the concession wagon. He looked it over and said, "That's the best designed towing package I have ever seen. I want one."

"Sean Woodruff and the entire team at ProPride are some of the finest folks I've ever done business with. I own their 3P 1400 hitch... and it is by far the best thing I've ever purchased in regards to our travel trailer. Goodbye sway... FOREVER!!! Please check out the ProPride line of products. Tell 'em Jeff sent ya'...." ~ Jeff & Julie Lockhart

"The Greatest Sway Eliminator Hitch in the World is the the ProPride Hitch, the latest creation of the brilliant inventor, Jim Hensley." ~ The RV Guys

"The best hitch to control sway is the Pro Pride ..."John DiMartino

"My next upgrade (on order) is the propride anti-sway hitch. I believe this will add to my pulling ease as I have some sway problems with the length of this camper. Thanks again - we are happy campers."
Dan & Vicki Vincent

"We just installed our 3P hitch last night. It took about 3 hours with 2 people doing the install. I'd recommend 2 to do the install. The fit was very good although the new paint made a couple of parts a bit tight to install although it wasn't an issue. There were no issues, with any missing pieces or fit of any sort. It came with a double ended wrench to tighten the spring bars, a socket and and extension bar for the hitch bolts. It has 8 line bolts, nice welds, and nice hard paint. [...] BTW, I placed the order for the hitch a couple of months ago and have a trip deadline to meet and Sean Woodruff got the thing shipped in no time. It reached us in 2 days, packed in 4 boxes. I did have a question about the pivot pin placement when doing the install, but he provided his cell phone number and in about 20 seconds he walked me though finding the hole that was right in front of my face...it was actually drilled horizontally into the 2x2 hitch bar that fits into the TV. He is very responsive and helpful, thanks again Sean."'owheely'-Airstream Knowledge Sharing Forums

ProPride 3P Hitch Details - Click Here

Or Call 'em:

ProPride, Inc
8200 Embury Road
Grand Blanc, MI
Zip Code: 48439
Phone: 810-496-2814
800-960-4767
Fax: 810-496-2828