2011 Rallies & Events
Story and photos by Jack Cofano {phocagallery view=categories|categoryid=870|imagecategories=0|}
This is the final day of coverage of the 2011 ROT Rally and there are a ton of new photos for you to look at.
Friday night is the motorcycle parade down Congress Ave. starting from the Travis Expo Center. The ROT parade, which holds the Guinness World Record for “Longest Parade of Motorcycles” in the world, is a sight that is absolutely jaw dropping. There are thousands of bikes — that’s right THOUSANDS of bikes — that take part in the 45-minute ride and proceed to parade the length of Congress Ave. greeted by almost 200,000 spectators lining the sides of the road. It is an awesome experience. To give you some perspective on the length of the parade, the bikes start down Congress Ave. in daylight and finish after dark which, I might add, is a horror scenario for a photographer.
On Saturday, the final night of the rally we were all treated to an amazing concert by The Doobie Brothers who are one of my all time favorites and they did not disappoint. Also on the final night two bikes are given away, one to a present or former Armed Forces spectator and one to a pre-registered spectator. The winner of the Military Bike Giveaway was Sergeant Sammy Sparger of the United States Army. Sergeant Sparger is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and has served in the military for 23 years.
The ROT rally is the forth-largest motorcycle rally in the USA, and the largest in Texas. The local press estimated that around $36 million dollars will be spent during the rally and that’s not too shabby in this economy. Let this be a lesson to all the current and planned rallies, if you do it right they will come.
Finally I would again like to thank Jerry and Colleen Bragg for giving up part of their year to putting this rally on and to Denise Garcia for making sure it all runs smooth as silk. I hope to be present again next year to enjoy all the festivities.