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Welcome to Thunder Beach and the 2008 Spring Rally! Stay tuned as we’ll be making posts on the front page of our website everyday bringing you the excitement and fun of the 2008 Thunder Beach Spring Rally! If you're headed down to the Rally, then we'll see you when you get here. If you're not coming, you're going to take one look at our daily updates and wish you had!
 DAY 1
Even though the Rally hasn’t officially kicked in yet, the party has begun! The last few days we have seen quite a few bikers rolling in to town a little early to soak up some extra sun, take in the sights, and to ride along the World’s Most Beautiful Beaches before the minions arrive. The Free Concerts at the Sandpiper Beacon have been a huge hit and so you can see for yourself, our cameras were there to capture all the fun! A big thank you to Garry for bringing Dan Lawson, Geneva and the amazing Atlanta Rhythm Section down for these pre-rally FREE Beachside Concerts! We have two more concerts left before the Rally officially begins so make sure you swing down to check out Tony Stevens' Slow Ride and rally favorite Mustang Sally!
Click here to check out our first Gallery of our 10th Anniversary Spring Rally!
 DAY 2
What a beautiful day to start setting up for the Rally! Bright blue skies, a slight gulf breeze, and the perfect 78 degrees makes us realize why Thunder Beach is so popular with so many people. Panama City Beach is truly beautiful! We already had a ton of vendors pull in late last night and early this morning to begin the arduous task of setting up their booths and getting everything just right. Wednesday is going to be the big day when the rest of our vendors start rolling in and its looking like its going to be a crazy day.
Tony Stevens' Slow Ride tore up the stage at another one of the Sandpiper Beacon's Free Pre-Rally Concerts. They pulled out all of the stops and put on a really great show. The Dan Lawson Band opened the show with a blazing performance highlighting a lot of his new original music and probably one of the best versions of Whole Lotta Rosie ever played on the beach! Where were you?!
Click here to check out our Gallery of Day 2 of our 10th Anniversary Spring Rally!
 DAY 3
What a day! You have got to give it up for all of the folks that put this rally on as well as the vendors that haul all of their wares down to our beautiful little beach town. Dropping in around 200 or so vendors at seven separate venues is no easy task! The lowly web guy here has much respect for all of those hard working folks out there busting hump in the hot Florida Sun. Everybody that’s on their way down is going to love what’s in store!
For those of you that weren’t able to hit the last pre-rally concert, you sure missed out! Mustang Sally was OFF THE HOOK! Tobi Lee and the rest of the girls – Brenda, Lisa, Sarah & Rachel – absolutely owned the Sandpiper Beacon stage tonight. Hitting the stage just after the beachside Fireworks show, these ladies showed everybody else how it needs to be done. Hopefully the crowds of Thunder Beach will see them again real soon! Aint’chya mad ya didn’t come down early!
Check out the gallery of Day 3 and see what all you missed!
 DAY 4
It’s official! The Rally has begun and our loyal biker friends have started to descend on Panama City Beach in droves! The rumble in the distance has now gotten so close you can smell the fumes and feel the air move as so many bikes are rolling on the streets of our beach town. Welcome Friends!
All seven venues opened up on schedule and everyone we have spoken to is excited about the new layout of our traditional venues, especially the Shoppes at Edgewater, Frank Brown Park, Sharky's and Spinnaker Beach Club. So many changes it’s almost like a brand new rally. The best description I heard through my travels around the rally yesterday was, “This place looks like Tent City but with a ton of cool stuff!”
The Thunder Beach Girls made their debut yesterday at the Official Thunder Beach Welcome Center at the Boardwalk Beach Resort Convention Center. Our first two lovely ladies – Jessica, Crystal and Anastasia- greeted friends and posed for shots next to our tribute to Veterans Bike displayed by Bert at B.C. Customs as well as made the rounds through the Venue. They also greeted many of those special few that purchased one of our Pre-Rally Packages at our Welcome Center.
Can’t leave out the awesome bands that turned up the heat on stages around the beach! Kelly Hundley & the Healers at Edgewater, biker favorite Geneva at the Sandpiper Beacon, and Zoso – the amazing Led Zepplin tribute act at Spinnaker all rocked Thunder Beach!
Make sure you check out the all of the shots in our Gallery of Day 4!
 DAY 5
Friday was what this Rally is all about! Beautiful blue skies, a perfect 77 degrees, and the roar of majestic V-Twins rolling down the gulf-side roads made today a perfect day at the Rally. All of our existing venues as well as the 2 new venues were packed with leather clad bikers and lovely ladies all looking for that perfect thing for their bike or the latest in motorcycle fashion. It seems to be the largest turnout ever for a Spring Rally making our 10th Anniversary that much better.
We had planned to spend some time at each one of the venues yesterday, but Frank Brown Park was just too happening to leave! The Thunder Beach Girls made a huge hit with visitors and vendors alike as they perused the booths, had photos made with hundreds of visitors, and saw some of the coolest bikes around! We ended our day time fun with the Miss Thunder Beach Contest and have posted an exclusive gallery dedicated to our lovely ladies! Make sure you check back with us mid week to see these great shots of beach beauties!
Our evening ended with an explosive performance of the indelible ELI. With a HUGE light show and production, Cookie, Kelly, Charlie & the boys ripped through classics from the 70’s on up and had the crowd jumping up and down for two solid hours!
We took so many photos on Day 5 that we had to split it into 2 Galleries!
Day 5 Gallery 1
Day 5 Gallery 2
 DAY 6
What a day! This was by far the biggest Saturday Thunder Beach has ever experienced. There was a literal sea of bikes from one end of Panama City Beach to the other. We started off our day early at the Edgewater venue and was surprised at how busy it was at 8:30am! I was worried I was a little to early to get some good shots, but boy was I wrong. The Kuryakyn install bay was already hopping and had bikes lined up for some cool new chrome. Metzeler, Dragonfly Concepts, Arnott Air Ride and the other big rigs had bikers line up checking out the latest and the greatest and nearly every other vendor had a small crowd gathering around them before I had finished my first cup o’ joe!
Check out Gallery 1 of Day 6
Around 10:00am, we headed over to the Kevin Kight Memorial Parade and was again surprised at the massive number of bikes that came out to support this worthy cause. An estimated 400 bikers lined up as far as the eye could see to honor one of our local fallen heroes. We were proud to be a part of this great ride.
Check out Gallery 2 of Day 6
It was then back to Edgewater to make sure that we didn’t miss anything! After a quick walkthrough and some chit chat with some new found friends, it was time hit our newest venue Sharky’s Beach Club. This brand new venue was going strong and we hadn’t even hit the lunchtime hour! Bikes were lined up from one side of the venue to the other and there were folks standing in line to get their bikes spruced beachside by the Sharky’s Bikini Bike Wash Girls.
After a good hour or two enjoying the music, food and friends it was time to ride the beach and check out some of the other popular hangouts like Shuckums, Hofbrau, and the new Margaritaville. All of these places had shiny chrome and leather clad travelers busting at the seams all having a great time living the beach life!
Check out Gallery 3 of Day 6
Then it was off to Spinnaker Beach Club to check out the new Bikes Only layout and lets just say it was workin’! The center aisle was think with thunderous machines and there were folks everywhere. My personal fave was the Dyno Machine where folks were pushing their bikes to the max to see what extra power they could tweak from their throaty V-Twin. It sounds SO cool when a big Harley motor hits a teeth rattling 5,500 RPMs!
After a short 30 minute rainstorm, everything was back to normal and I was off to the Boardwalk to get some shots of biker favorite Grip and to watch the sun go down on our beautiful beaches. After 10 years of living here, watching that orange sun drop into the water still makes me stop and take notice of how great a place Panama City Beach is!
We ended our night with a short trip back to Edgewater to check out Dan Lawson’s final performance of Thunder Beach and then a quick jaunt down to the Beacon to talk it up with our old friends from ELI. What a long and exhausting day, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing!
Check out Gallery 4 of Day 6
Saturday was a HUGE day and we took a ton of photots. Enough to split them into 4 different galleries!
Day 6 Gallery 1
Day 6 Gallery 2
Day 6 Gallery 3
Day 6 Gallery 4
 DAY 7
Alas, it is our last day and although the entire staff of Thunder Beach, our vendors and all of participating sponsors have not gotten very much sleep, it has been one hell of an experience. We had originally planned on calling it quits as far as photography goes, but there were so many people still in town and a large number of vendors decided to stay open, we made the rounds one more time. I was so excited I finally got a chance to catch the Motorcycle Stunt Show and the Ball of Steel. It’s always one of my favorite events as it takes major cajones to do what these cats do!
I was also glad to see Vince and the guys from Redneck Engineering still on site as I hadn’t had a chance to talk to them. Vince is a super guy and has been a long time Rally Attendee. He also happens to build some of the baddest bikes available on the planet! Hopefully after he reads my feeble attempt at a long distance ass kiss, I’ll get a deal on one!
Click here to view Sunday's photos
SEE YA'LL IN SEPTEMBER AT THE FALL RALLY!
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