I can’t believe I only have a handful of days to get ready for the Tail of the Dragon event the first week in May….it is quite a lot of work to get prepped. Point of purchase displays, lighting, signage, transportation, setup, running the booth, bringing the product, food, etc. etc….

I wish I could just run a virtual store down there and have everything magically appear in the customers hands so I could hang out more and get to know the people that have supported us over the last 5 years. That is my main purpose for going down to the event but everyone really enjoys having us there and love to check out the products we bring. It is the only event we do each year but may consider doing AMVIV (Biggest West Coast event held in Vegas) at some point, but it is quite a lot more work to get everything to Vegas vs driving 7 hours down to Tennessee from our location in Ohio. When we relocate to Charlotte (as soon as our house sells) we will be just a short drive from Fontana Village and it will that much easier to do the event. As of now, my wife and our 3 kids will be heading down for the 4 day event and have her parents watching the kids at our cabin which makes it a lot more enjoyable. Our kids love going down to the event and with both our families being in Knoxville, it is an easy trip for them to pop over and visit us while we’re down there.

I did not know what to think when Alta released the latest version of some of their exhaust systems and intercoolers in the matte black finish which they have tagged as “stealth”. It seems to be pretty cool but it also looks a bit unfinished with the matte finish and all but it also has this sort of mean, raw look to it that is pretty hip. Trendy, maybe. A fad? Most likely. But hey, it looks nice under the right circumstances so I decided to start selling it as an option to the polished finish that Alta also makes.

Over the last few months I have designed a few tshirts that seem to be VERY popular. So much so I find myself running over to the local screenprinters shop to drop off a load of t-shirts about once a week and with it comes a bill for printing shirts and the hassle of the minimum order requirements, 1 week order prep time and all that. So, I thought I would try to bring that process in-house and bought a Heat Transfer press (on ebay for super cheap) and will start doing shirts in lower quantities so we can offer more designs. I would rather have 10 designs and have 3 of each size in stock than 3 designs and 10 of each size sitting in stock if you know what I mean. It’s a basic retailing concept called Wide and Shallow VS Shallow and Deep…I have typically preferred to run a Wide and Shallow especially with how quickly I can generally get restocked on the things we sell (in most cases 1-5 days on any given item). There are a few items that I stock hundreds and hundreds and some I stock dozens and dozens while others maybe 1-2 at a time….so anyways, having the capability to prints shirts at will and keep a few in backstock will be nice.

To top it off the owner of the company a few doors down that does nearly all of the label and decorative application sourcing for Victorias Secret, Abercrombie, Under Armour and a few other major retailers that are headquartered within a few miles of the OutMotoring World HQ is a good friend. Chris also happens to have patents on some of the most widely used innovative screen printing techniques and is a all around good guy who has all the connections one could image with Chinese printers, label makers, etc. So, he is the one that helps get our OutMotoring keychains made for us at a extremely good cost and is also helping get heat transfers printed. This will allow us me to design and offer about 6-10 new shirts and print them as needed and keep our inventory investment down while offering new and fresh designs.

And no, that shirt in the heat press below will not be one of the new ‘fresh’ designs…

I was thinking about how much money I pay the local sign shop to do stuff like make our hood stripes and stickers and the thought came to me to just start doing it in-house so I don’t have to wait 3-5 days for new stripes when I’m out of stock. Plus, we have added so many new stickers and other stuff that I thought it would be nice to have a vinyl cutter. So, I found a great deal on Craigslist and went to buy it this evening with my kids and wife in our trusty Mazda MINI van. It’s a pretty cool plotter style cutter that I hope will be put to good use. You gotta love Craigslist. This thing was a steal and came with a computer (running cough, cough, windows 95) but has the print software as part of the CorelDraw software that is loaded onto it well. I figure it will be paid for in about 3 months of hood stripes that we typically sell.

I just can’t seem to get enough of the Griots Garage products. Every couple weeks I find something that I want to start offering to our customers. So I buy a few and see how they do and of course they sell. The latest additions from this week are the revised 3″ Professional Polisher and the Bumper and Trim Reconditioner. The Bumper and Trim Reconditioner is the BEST product that I know of to get the lower plastic trim on the MINI Cooper that rich silky black. There are a few other products on the market, but they mostly make the trim look like greasy cheap popcorn from the movie theater. Do yourself a favor and pick some of this stuff up.

James Bedford was the first person to be Cryogenically frozen in Jan 1967. I have no idea who he was but it the first thing that popped up when I searched “cryogenic frozen people” after searching the same thing but for ‘celebrities’ returned some garbage about Walt Disney and Lucie Lou. So, the first freezing of a humas was over 40 years ago, and now look what we’re doing with the technology; freezing perfectly good rotors so they perform even better. Who thought of this? I had nothing to do with it.

While freezing people sounds quite silly and to be quite honest freezing brake rotors sounds even more silly (or is the other way around?) at least we gain something from freezing rotors. These rotors, in fact, offer a nice benefit over standard replacement rotors in that they last longer and offer other technical advantages. Check out the new Cryogenically frozen rotors for the MINI Cooper over at Outmotoring.com.

If you’ve been considering buying some 3 or 4 point racing harness’s you may find that they can be a bit pricey. If you don’t plan on racing more than a couple times a season you may consider buying a CG lock as it allows the driver to lock in the lap portion of the stock seat belt with a simple click while the inertia reel does the hard work on the rest of the upper body. I find that a lot of customers also buy them for day to driving as it really locks your lower body and allows you to concentrate more on driving instead of keeping your body in position during spirited driving.

Cravenspeed has had a similar intake for the generation 1 MINI Cooper S for some time, but we had never offered it until they made some revisions that make it what it is today. We now offer there revised intake and feel it is a good value as it includes a see through top plate so it is easy to see when the filter is dirty and it is well made as are all of their products. If you are on the fence about getting a cold air intake system for your MINI Cooper S, consider this intake (along with the Alta, KN and the DDM works). They all offer similar products that pretty much do the same thing but with a few design, cost and style variations. The Cravenspeed Intake does have some interesting features that make it a top contender.

There are a few manufacturers of MINI Cooper Silicone Intake Hoses but in my opinion this one is the best. It is made to strict quality control standards, has a consistent wall thickness and fits great. What more can one ask? What is nice about this one in comparison to say the Alta brand hose is that this one has enough length to fit securely onto both the throttle body and the intake transition pipe. As that being one of the biggest complaints with the Alta hose, there is no reason to consider anything other than this one.

It’s about time MINI offered a travel mug that actually fits in the cupholders! Okay, so calling the round openings near the toggle switches a “cupholder” is not really fair, but at least these pups actually fit. Pick one up today. the 8oz limit is a bit …limiting but at least it has the MINI wordmark on it to offset the insane price of $19.95. I never said it was a bargain, but it does look cool and is well made.