Rally e-newsletter Vol 5.04, September 16, 2005

CELEBRATION RA
OCTOBER 6-9, 2005

THE CELEBRATION/CALSONIC ARENA
SHELBYVILLE, TN
http://www.bmwra.org/rally

I intend to talk mostly about the great seminar lineup for the rally, but we'll take care of something first.

Mapping Address:

A lot of you have e-mailed about an address to use for your mapping software. Unfortunately, the "official" address of the rally grounds is very misleading so the address we are using is: 799 Whitthorne Street, Shelbyville, TN.

Calsonic Arena sits on Whitthorne Street, almost at the spot the X will appear when you map. In addition, you will see Celebration Drive. We want you to enter the rally grounds off Celebration Drive from Madison Street. In fact, ou will see signs directing you to the rally grounds at the major intersection coming into the rally grounds area and into Registration. Look for the BMW roundel!

If your mapping software shows Rt. 16 or Rt. 41A (Map Quest showed Rt. 16), this is also Madison Street.

Seminars

Where do I begin? I'd like to introduce you to the great lineup of seminars at this year's rally.

Thursday starts this lineup with Gary Smith, Al Vangura, Mike Figielski and Anton Largiader conducting the Oilhead Maintenance Seminar. This seminar will also be conducted Friday afternoon. Aided by the Al Vangura prepared components of Oilhead motorcycles and tools, Gary, Al, Mike and Anton will offer tips on various maintenance procedures for BMW Oilhead motorcycles. Components include an Oilhead engine, transmission, final drive and fork tubes. In addition, there will be time for questions and answers related to the subjects presented and components displayed. These components and speakers will also be available for a little one-on-one Q & A after the seminar in the Ride and Info Center inside Calsonic Arena.

This seminar will be followed by a Tire Tech Seminar hosted by techncial personnel from Bridgestone Tire. Bob Young from the NHTSA will end the evening with "Motorcycles, NHTSA and You".

Friday opens wil the ever popular Coffee with David and Fred and continues throughout the day with: "Surviving Traffic" with David Hough, another Tire Tech Seminar with Bridgestone, Motorcycling Adventures in South America with Davis Bales of Brazil Motorcycle Adventures, ending the evening with Fred Rau and "The Mis-Adventures of a Professional Moto-Journalist."

You'll have a very busy day on Saturday: Fred and David first thing again followed by Robert Young. Helen TwoWheels gives her popular packing seminar, the Chain Gang talks all things F650, Lee Parks talks about Advanced Riding Techniques, Skert addresses Women Who Ride and gives her Dropped Bike Seminar, Stu Oltman delves into Electrical Charging Systems, David Hough talks about Cornering Tactics and gives a Sidecar Seminar.

And for all your Airheads, I just received word that we will have an Airhead seminar with the ever popular Q & A with noted experts.

In addition RA Board members will talk about the Regional Rep program and the upcoming Board and Trustee elections.

One seminar should interest all rally goers: RA Rally in 2006. The rally co-chairs from the 2006 rally will give a seminar introducing you to the 34th Annual RA Rally with maps and other great stuff! I think you're going to like this site and if you ask real nice, I'll tell you where it's at and when!

The entire rally program will be posted on the rally website on Tuesday, Sept. 20th for your review.

Take this great seminar lineup and add guided Dual-Sport/GS rides on Thursday and Friday, the open RA Board of Trustees meeting on Friday morning, ERC and Trails Classes, live entertainment, vendors, and great company, it doesn't get any better than this. And don't forget the Jack Daniels Luncheon on Friday: if you haven't signed up yet, the registration for this and rally pre-registration will shut down on Sunday, Sept. 18th at noon.

Volunteer!

The volunteer schedules are posted on the rally website and folks have started to volunteer. Check out the schedules by clicking on "Volunteer". In addition to the volunteer gift, we will have Door Prize Drawings just for rally volunteers. Every time you complete your volunteer duties, you will be given a ticket. Fill out this ticket and drop into the Volunteer Door Prize Box at the Rally Office inside the Calsonic Arena.

Rally Charity

It didn't take a lot of discussion to decide the rally charity for this year. The charity will be the American Cancer Society. Most all of us working on the rally have been touched by this disease in some way and especially in the motorcycling community. I feel very strongly that it doesn't matter our politics, we are all a part of a great motorcycling community and in the end we do take care of each other.

It's getting real close.....are you ready?

Debbi Harbour, RAlly Liaison
BMW Riders Association

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