The hundreds of thousands of bikers who came to the Grand Strand the past three weeks may have spent millions of dollars in Horry and Georgetown counties, but their effect in neighboring Brunswick County, N.C., was minimal at best.

Several Brunswick County businesses said Monday that vacationing bikers only made up a small fraction of their sales.

Lou Hewett, a rental reservationist for Cooke Realtors in Ocean Isle Beach, said she might have had a dozen bikers rent a home or condo in the past month.

And that's more than on a normal year, she said.

Those rentals occurred during the Carolina Harley-Davidson Dealers Association Myrtle Beach rally, Hewett said.

In Calabash, Beck's restaurant manager, Sara Frelich, said there were more bikers arriving on Harleys this past week than came on the Japanese-made bikes that dominate the Atlantic Beach Bikefest.

Still, it would be difficult to tell there was a bike rally occurring only a few miles away, across the state line, by the crowds she saw.

"We didn't really get any [bikers]," Frelich said.

The past several weeks, many bikers were seen turning around on U.S. 17 at the N.C. border. N.C. law requires all bikers to wear helmets.

Motorcycle groups have been lobbying state lawmakers to change the law so only those younger than 21 would have to wear a helmet as they do in South Carolina.

This past year, the N.C. Concerned Bikers Association began saying that if the helmet law were repealed, the Tarheel State would be able to grow its $12.6 billion tourism industry by bringing thousands of bikers to the state for large rallies.

In March 2004, Mohammad Jenatian, president of the Greater Charlotte Hospitality & Tourism Alliance, told a legislative committee that being able to bring large bike rallies into North Carolina could bring as much as $1 billion in additional tourism revenue.

Slowly, their efforts are gaining momentum and attention. A bill is pending in the General Assembly to make May Motorcycle Awareness Month in North Carolina. Brunswick County Reps. Bonner Stiller and Dewey Hill are the bill's two primary sponsors.

Rep. John Sauls, R-Harnett, filed a bill in April to allow those 21 and older to ride without a helmet. The bill is currently in the House finance committee.

Changing the helmet law faces opposition from safety experts. Those who don't wear a helmet face a 29 percent greater chance of dying from a crash, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Every state that has repealed its helmet law has seen an increase in fatalities, including Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky and Arkansas, which all changed their helmet laws in the past decade, the administration said. Louisiana's motorcycle death rate increased by 75 percent two years after its helmet law changed, according to the NHTSA.