It's all my fault that diesel costs more than gasoline. Back in '04 gas was more expensive than diesel fuel. Therefor I bought a brand-new diesel GMC pickup. It was within a week that the price of diesel jumped up to more than gasoline, and it has stayed there ever since, so I guess you can blame the high cost on my buying a diesel. We replaced the '04 with an '09 diesel and don't regret it a bit. Not only do we get pretty decent fuel economy (23 highway without a trailer, 14 3/4 or so with the trailer). but "driveability" - i.e. noise, the sound of the engine screaming when it shifts down to make it up a hill, and very long life, etc. - make the diesel far more attractive to us.
We also pull heavy trailers. Not only the race trailer, which isn't all that heavy in the grand scope of things, but also the equipment trailer with the Bobcat loaded. That probably adds up to 6 ton or so. Yes, you can tell it's back there, but we still don't get many downshifts on hills.
And now back to our regularly scheduled thread - Milwaukee Midget.