I wholehearted agree Richard. The Austin rally was more focused on gear-heads than the Newell sponsored rallies. However, I have found that both types of rallies were filled with honest, open, caring individuals that, although having extremely diverse backgrounds, were all interesting and caring people.
The 'average' coach at the mini rally was about 15 years old while the 'average' coach at the Newell sponsored rallies I have attended was about 4 years old. There are fewer do-it-yourself'ers at the Newell sponsored rallies but their interests in modifications and desire to learn more about their coaches is obvious. At the Michigan rally a year and a half ago, the tech talk session by John Clark, Vice President of Newell, had a large attendance and was greatly appreciated by all.
I wish we had set up a specific time for some tech talk sessions (it was discussed on this forum but didn't happen) but the desire to spend most of our time 'under the hood' helping each other made the rally a success. The information I received by working with others on coaches and crawling in and under coaches from 1982 - 1999 was invaluable to me.
These are incredible machines and treated with respect may outlive us.
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