FATBOB's biker rally reviews
GulfPort Memorial Day Blowout 2005 biker party
GulfPort Memorial Day Blowout 2005 Gulfport, MS May 27-30th, 2005 The great memorial day washout. If you've owned a scooter for more than about 25 minutes you've probably heard about this rally. Been going on for some 20'odd years now, and is almost always a great time. Good people, good fun, some weekend drags at the strip, a couple of wild girlie contests and after hours fun in the campgrounds once it gets dark are pretty well what's come to be expected. This year? Well... read on! The gates open on friday and I suggest you get their early. By the time I pulled in around 3pm'ish in the afternoon the campgrounds were already about 75% full. And the gates fees are rather stiff. Usually ya just sorta show up at the gate & give them $20 or so to campout for the weekend. These guys charge you $50 per head, and that's if your on your bike. Drove your pickup? That will be an EXTRA $30 please. With you motorcycle on a trailer behind it? Tack on another $30 please. Brought your ol'lady? Shell out another $50 for her entry fee. And so on. If you happen to drive your truck & trailer your bike it will cost you a $50 entry fee (each) + $30 vehicule fee + $30 trailer fee. Wow. Hang on, let me get my calculator out... that's... $160 to get in the gate?!?!? Gawd help you if you one of them rich dudes with a motorhome! Damn. No wonder expectations are so high. Glad I just puttered over there on my scooter & left my four wheels at home. Ok, so on Friday they have nothing going on. Not much of a party yet in the campgrounds either. You just sorta get there & find a camping spot, and wait for Saturday. On Saturday things finally kick off just before lunch time with the drags. During the afternoon there's the bike show, the rodeo, drags on & off all day and a bikini contest at around dinner time, with a live band when sun goes down playing on into the night. It's all pretty standard stuff, except for the bike games that drag on and on and on and on. They have a slow race at 2pm, which takes about 15 minutes. Then instead of having the barrel race right afterwards they have it an hour later. Weenie bite? Come back and see that in two hours. Or was it three? It's amazing how you can drag out 3 biker rodeo events ALL afternoon. Kinda bizarre. It's also kind of annoying because they have maybe around 7,000 people show up and of course space around the field where they have the rodeo is limited, so you have to show up early to be able to see anything. And then start the entire process an hour later for the next rodeo event. The weather was great on Saturday, and they've got a ton of vendors selling anything from Apples to Zebras, and the dinner time bikini contest was really good. Some hot babes got right up there and it was all business baby. It never fails to suprise me exactly how much motivation you can get out of $200 :) I shot the entire thing on video, check it out it was pretty damn good. After the Bikini contest the sun was setting and it's time to head back out to the campgrounds for the party. Ok, so where's the party again? In the campgrounds, right? Ah, wrong. I dunno what's going on, but things are definately a lot quieter than in past years. I saw a few girls flashing, but then again I also saw a few of the local law running up & telling the girls to put them boobies back under wraps. Oh well, at least nobody got arrested. So I figured I would go & check out the titty painting. I mean, they ALWAYS have a guy painting titties after dark. Last year they even had TWO different enterprising gentlemen practicing fine art at the end of the vendor row. So I head on over to check it out... and it was deserted. Tumbleweeds blew by as I stood there in the dark all by myself, with the titty painting tent all closed down & locked up like Fort Knox. What is going on? I headed back to the campgrounds, hung out with some friends, shot an occasional titty here & there and finally just gave up & decided to call it a night around 11 pm. Yes, you read it right 11 pm. 23:00 hours. At a biker rally? That just ain't right. Sunday morning was all cloudy & overcast. They had CMA services at something like 9am followed by the flag raising ceremony. And then the drags were supposed to start up but it started raining. Cleared up a little just long enough to have a burnout contest on the track, and then it started raining again. So everyone just kind of holed up & waited for... something. And then around two in the afternoon somebody announces over the PA ''Thanks for comming, see ya later''. WHAT!?!? They gotta be kidding, right? Wrong. People started haulin' ass home, everybody else holed up in their tents and that was that. And it rained. And rained. And rained. And then just for some variety it drizzled, piddled, misted and poured rain some more. I decided to stay the night just hoping somebody would start a party somewhere but it just wasn't happening. And honestly also cuz I was kinda hoping the rain would let up a bit so I would have a nicer scooter ride home the next day. And that was that. Hell I dunno how I'm supposed to sum up this rally. Usually it's a good time and I don't mind paying the gate fees simply because you KNOW it's gonna be worth it. This year? I kind of wished I had gone somewhere else. ---------------------- Campground Description : Flat terrain, semi shaded. Held at the Gulfport Dragway. Very small stage area, get there early to get a spot if you want to see the contests. Lots of vendors. Small strip taped off for the biker rodeo games, once again get there early if you expect to find a spot to be able to view the games from. Camping space is almost always filled up completely by early friday evening, get there early to secure a tent spot. RV's definately must show up as early as possible. Gravel roads throughout the camprounds, paved entrance. --------------------- Entry : $50 for the weekend, motorcycles free $30 extra per car, truck or trailer $60 extra per larger vehicules or trailer Camping on Site : Included RV Hookups Available Live Band : ??? missed them! Contests : Bikini Contest Tatoo contest everything else cancelled Events : Bike Show Biker rodeo games Drag Strip Food & other vendors on location B.Y.O.B. Stores less than 2-3 miles away hotels in gulfport less than 10 miles away