ob Byrne might best be described as unflappable. The effusive “head FROG” of the Forest River Owners Group (FROG) has overseen the club since its inception — and has worked to grow it into the largest RV owners association in North America while dealing with the innumerable dilemmas that tend to be part and parcel to staging events for such organizations.
Sometimes, though, Byrne is pitched a curveball that’s just unhittable. Mother Nature tossed one last year with the onset of the coronavirus, resulting in the cancellation of the FROG International Rally for the first time since its inception in 2012 — along with the rest of the expansive 2020 FROG schedule — and was winding up to throw Byrne a spitball for 2021. But when confirmed cases of the virus began dropping in Elkhart County, Indiana, this spring, Byrne got the go-ahead to stage the 2021 rally — in limited scope.
The 2021 International Rally, which historically pulled in more than 500 RVs — and more than double that number of participants — would be limited to just 300 entries. As Byrne recalled later, “We filled those slots in about four hours.”
As the number of virus cases continued to drop, county officials later increased the allowable number of RVs to 500, but the pandemic’s impact had already been felt. Some families made other plans, and the continued closure of the U.S.-Canadian border to “non-essential traffic” meant the large FROG contingent from Canada wouldn’t be showing up this year. According to Byrne, about 430 families made it to the Elkhart 4-H Fairgrounds in Goshen, Ind., for the program.
But the week-long rally — “We run from Sunday dinner to Saturday breakfast,” Byrne noted — went off without a hitch.
And the FROG International Rally is known for its schedule of events. Aside from the meals — four dinners and six breakfasts, each held in one of the expansive halls at the fairgrounds — and six nights of camping, participants also could attend any of 75 technical seminars, meet with the 60 vendors which set up displays, enjoy evening entertainment or sign up for any of a variety of local tours.
As might be expected, the rally also featured an expansive display of new Forest River-branded RVs, including the River Ranch, a new luxury fifth-wheel line under the Columbus brand that was introduced last fall, and the Entrada, the new Class C motorhome from the builder’s East to West division.
“We have a team of about 300 service techs on the grounds and they just work under extraordinary conditions,” said Byrne. “Those guys and ladies do a tremendous job.” The service technicians are mostly Forest River employees, although Byrne noted that the rally also gets “tremendous cooperation” from many of Forest River’s component suppliers and partners. Indeed, service trucks bearing the logos of companies including MORryde and Lippert were seen throughout the grounds, augmented by repair crews from Dexter Axle, Progressive Dynamics and others.
In fact, the repairs program has become such a popular aspect of the international rally that FROG was recently forced to make some adjustments, limiting work to RVs manufactured in the current year and those of the last three model years; at the 2021 rally, that translated into 2019-and-newer units. Even with the year limits, however, the rally service center was a hub of activity when it opened each morning as owners scheduled repairs.
Nearby, Karen Rambow, owner of Rambow’s Glass Repair, was using what she described as “long-crack resin” to effect a repair to a cracked windshield on a Class A gas-powered Georgetown motorhome.
“It has more solvent properties so it eats through any products someone can put on the windshield that can get into the hole, like Rain-X. When I’m done, it’s guaranteed for life not to split or to yellow.”
According to Rambow, who has been doing RV glass repair for 35 years, fixing cracks makes sense — the glass cannot be recycled.
Nor was everything happening outdoors. When we approached someone sitting outside a Cherokee Limited travel trailer with a sign proclaiming “The Flick’s” we discovered he definitely wasn’t the aforementioned Russell Flick.
Instead, Richard Verdier was enjoying the weather — and his first FROG rally — outside his friend’s RV while repairs were being made inside his 2020 32-foot Salem Hemisphere.
“When we bought this camper, the district sales manager told me about the FROG rally,” he said. “We had planned on coming last year, but because of Covid it was cancelled. So, we made arrangements to come this year.”
Actually, the two-man crew inside Verdier’s Salem Hemisphere was in the midst of unbolting the furniture in the rear-lounge floorplan in order to access — and replace — a large portion of the flooring.
There were other stories, to be sure. In fact, some repairs hadn’t even been planned by the RV owners. During registration, attendees were required to provide the 17-digit vehicle identification number of their RV, which allowed Byrne’s crew to check it against any possible recalls. Those also were addressed at the rally.
“If we come across something that we perceive as a safety issue, we don’t want somebody to leave the fairgrounds without our correcting it,” said Byrne.