I did my first track event this year. It was a Mustang Fest down at Texas World Speedway (TWS) in College Station, TX. Other than a huge off and getting stuck in the mud, I held up the Porsche end of the bargain. But one thing is tugging at the back of my mind. My two track buddies are looking beyond doing track events. One has his car for sale and the other wants to dial back events so he can focus on his start up business. Each of these guys has a big Ford F-250 diesel and a trailer to haul their race cars. So where does that leave me? I have two choices. One is to buy a truck and trailer to tow my Cayman S (CS) down to the track. The other is to figure out a way to install a trailer hitch on the CS and tow my own track gear to the track. You can imagine the response I got when I outlined my options to the lovely Ms. Turner. Ahhh, the truck / trailer option isn't gonna happen. So I did my research and found out it could be done.
There are ways to install a hitch on a Porsche, none of them are "sanctioned" per se by Porsche, but they seem to do the job. Here is the other point, I already have a trailer. Back in 2008 I bought a set of tires and it came with a trailer. At the time I had a Porsche 968 and we figured out a way to build a trailer hitch. My Brother in Law bulit it up for me. I actually used it a couple of times, but the 968 went away and the hitch I built up was not a part of the sale. I still have the all the parts for the hitch so I have a lot of steel that can be used to build up something new for the CS. I spent the past couple of weeks reading about what others have done, I think I have a pretty good handle on what it will take to build up a hitch for the CS. So to make sure I still had a trailer to use, I went over to one of my race buds house (where the trailer has been sitting for a couple of years) to see how bad it is. And I am glad to report, it looks pretty good. I do plan to repaint it, refinish the wheels, put new tires and safety chains on it to give it a new lease on life. Take off the rear bumper cover and remove the bumper itself and see what we need to do to make a hitch work. I will post up in the next couple of weeks to report how the integration of the hitch is going.
You can also ask to see the results of the latest health inspection. 7. If you simply don't like frozen food and don't want it served at your wedding, ask if the wedding cake will be frozen. But understand that some people believe the taste of several cakes improves after freezing. 8. Ask how long before the wedding date the cakes will be prepared and how they will be kept until time for delivery. If you think the time or the method of storage will result in the bridal cake not being as fresh as you want, express your feeling to the person you are talking with. He or she either will explain or demonstrate that this will not be a problem or will negotiate a shorter length of storage. She may let you sample some cake kept for that length of time. Some cakes keep well when frozen, and others do not. Pound cakes and some carrot cakes seem to improve with freezing.
If you are not satisfied and cannot reach some agreement, you must use another bakery. 9. To find how much time and attention will be spent on your cake, ask how many orders the bakery typically has for the weekend of your order and how many of those your pastry chef might be producing. A large volume can be an indication that not a lot of time and attention can be devoted to your cake. But a very busy bakery also indicates that many people like its products and trusts its work. Wedding cake bakery that no one likes will have plenty of time to dedicate to your cake, but that alone will not guarantee good results. Neither will a very busy bakery guarantee good results all the time. For one, you may need to check with them during the week of production to make sure that things are going well.
For the other, you may want to check to make sure that your order has not somehow been overlooked among so many orders. In either case verify that your cake is in the process of being prepared. 10. Ask if the decorator is experienced and good and if he or she decorated the cakes pictured in the bakery's gallery. You may be satisfied that all decoration is supervised by a master decorator with long experience and excellent references, even though the actual work may be done by one of several less experienced decorators. 11. Ask to be introduced to each of the people who will bake, decorate, and deliver the cake. You may have questions you want to ask. If you do, ask them. For example, you might be concerned with the experience each one has. If so, you might ask how many cakes they have baked or decorated. I might be more concerned to simply ask whether they did the cakes in the bakery's album of cakes. If you have no questions, ask to meet them anyway. Introduce yourself and try to make it easy for them to remember your name and your face.