The peak torque of the engine is down around 1200-1500 RPM. If you can feather foot the throttle see if it will up shift lower than 1600-1700. If not see if you can manually shift sooner to keep the RPM down between that 1200-1500 RPM. Slow and easy still gets you up to speed.
Torque is what pulls you up hills and down the road. RPM is just speed. With those weights I would be surprised if you couldn't get in the 9's pretty easy. Granted wind resistance plays in but Class A flat nosed push a lot more air and I had quite a few of those come through the shop in the 9's and 10's with Series 60.
I will say too for every 5 mph over 55 you are pushing 10 times more wind resistance, so at 65 you are pushing more than 100 times the amount of wind than 55.
Learned that from PACCAR Research in the 1990's. Just sayin...
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