Return to front page

This was the first year that the Founders Feast (formerly the Indiana Cookout) was not held in my hometown of New Castle, Indiana. My plan was to be gone on the Americas Ride in the Fall of 2006 and the MTF calendar was full during the earlier part of the year so we decided that we would hold the Founders Feast with the RAT in Texarkana. How did that work out?

We had excellent facilities. The hotel was an older hotel with modest rooms but they gave us a good rate, they allowed us to cater our own meal, and the banquet area was on site. We basically rented the whole hotel for two days. You always worry about running out of food but the caterer did a nice job of carrying on our tradition of a good barbeque meal and there was plenty of food for seconds. The hotel staff will have found memories of us as they had a good feed on the leftovers.

I had great support for the rally with Barb Smith, Don Braziel, Grumpy and Lil Knight, and Jason and Agnes Arnold spending time hunting bonuses. Barb, Don, and Bob Moore assisted me in sorting those 100+ bonus locations to a manageable number. We only had roughly 20 participants in the rally but I think all had a good time and will carry some memories with them for a long time.

The inaugural RAT ride was a success. I think all of the riders were as impressed by the diversity of Texas as I was when I did the ride. I'm sure each of them have their own stories to share. Originally we had planned a Tuesday morning start. Some folks suggested a Monday evening checkin and we eventually agreed to allow riders to checkin Monday evening or Tuesday morning and leave at their own discretion after checkin. That turned out to be a blessing. Everybody checked in Monday evening with some leaving immediately and most out by early morning Tuesday. I had terrific help from Bob Moore and Kevin Lechner otherwise the checkin line would have been very long. We learned that our computer program defaults to a small shirt size if the rider does not select a size? How many people would forget to select a size? How many RAT riders wore small shirts? The answer to those questions is 13 and 0. Obviously, this created a bit of a problem but due to some cancellations, some extra shirts being offered and Randy Freyer giving up his shirts we were able to get everybody their shirt.

The not so fun part of the RAT was dealing with three accidents. A high side due to a wobble caused by a rut; a deer strike; and an unknown reason at a rest area. We did our part to contribute to the motorcycling economy as all riders will likely be buying new rides. We are fortunate that the gear did its job and the injuries were not serious. Did I say, accidents are no fun and that accidents during an event are really no fun? You feel so helpless in that there is just very little that you can do.

I would like to recognize someone that really jumps out in my mind. Dennis Powell. Dennis doesn't post much on the forum - as he says, I can barely operate a computer. But Dennis is typical of what I have come to appreciate about our members - When a job needs to be done they seem to always be there to get it done. Dennis emailed me a few weeks before the event and said that he was having a banner made. That was cool because our banners are wondering around somewhere and it completely slipped my mind. During the event Dennis was like a mother sow (I originally said mother hen but since Dennis currently has about 12,000 pigs sow seemed more appropriate), picking up extra drinks and constantly helping out and making sure that everything was in order. Thanks Dennis your extra efforts were really appreciated.

Where will the Founders Feast be next year? I'm not sure. The committees will be working on the calendar very soon as we try to have the calendar set by October of each year. Once the events are picked and the dates are set, we will set the date for the 2007 Founders Feast. Hope to see you there.