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PANAMA CITY BEACH — If you haven’t seen them, you might have heard them.
Hundreds of bikers started to roll in to town this week for the 21st bi-annual Thunder Beach motorcycle rally. The Kick-Start Party and preliminary round of the Miss Thunder Beach contest are Wednesday night at the Oaseas Resort, with an after party at Pineapple Willy’s Restaurant and Pier Bar.
Jennifer Norby, a Thunder Beach sales marketer, said organizers expect the biggest turnout yet at this spring’s five-day bike fest. She thinks between 60,000 and 100,000 bikes will rumble through Panama City Beach in the upcoming days, with many of those motorcycles carrying two riders.
More and more, she said, rally goers are staying in town and pumping money into the community for longer than just a few days.
“We’re finding that people are coming here as their annual vacation,” Norby said. “These are doctors, lawyers, business owners — I mean, these are expensive bikes. They come in to get away and they bring their kids.”
Dan Rowe, executive director of the Bay County Tourist Development Council, said the rally gives the area a “wonderful economic boost.”
“Just listening to the Harleys roll down the street, and the number of motorcycles that you see, does give you a clear indication that this is a major event for the Beach at a time that's outside the peak summer vacation season,” Rowe said. “The spring rally is a much larger rally than the fall rally, but they’re both important to the community.”
Police plan to step up their enforcement for the weekend, like they do each time Thunder Beach comes around, Police Chief Robert Harding said. He’ll have more officers out, but he doesn’t expect trouble.
“This is not a typical crowd that we have problems with,” the chief said. “Thunder Beach has never really been an event that we’ve had issues with, other than heavier traffic and occasional traffic crashes.”
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