FIREBALL RUN comes to the Pee Dee
By Jana E. Pye, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
In a county that loves cars, learning that the FIREBALL RUN is coming to nearby Florence has piqued quite a bit of interest. If you can take a hint, you may be privy to watching them up close and personal right here in Darlington County!
The FIREBALL RUN is a fast-paced, trivia and activity-based game played by 40 teams along a 2,000-mile route over the course of 8 days. Teams must solve missions and earn points by visiting cities and completing several activities each day. The missions range from historic “once in a lifetime” opportunities, to adrenaline-filled timed elements.
FIREBALL RUN aids in The Race to Recover America’s Children by assigning each team a child missing from their hometown. Teams are provided 1000 missing child posters to distribute during the live event. FIREBALL RUN’s media campaign has resulted in the successful recovery 44 missing children.
FIREBALL RUN Season 9 (2015) will start Sept 25th and finish on Oct 3rd, beginning in Hartford, CT, then adventuring to Queen Anne’s, MD, Williamsburg, VA, Topsail Island, NC, Florence, SC, Liberty County, GA, and finishing 8 days later to a massive city-wide parade finish in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
This season will follow a Space theme; four international astronauts will be featured:
• Capt. Jon McBride (USA)
• Cmdr. Rakesh Sharma (India)
• Lt. Col. Marcos Pontes (Brazil)
• Gen. Jean-Loup Chrétien (France).
Joining the astronauts will be Forbes 100 company executives and CEOs and celebrity teams including:
• Team Versailles, featuring actress Jacqueline Siegel, star of “The Queen of Versailles”
• Team Adrianne, featuring Adrienne Curry, known as the first winner of America’s Next Top Model
• Team FTK, featuring Ray McClelland, Co-Host of Car Warriors on Speed Channel
• Team Macdaddios – with Chris McDonald, Thelma’s husband in Thelma and Louise
Florence will have a team competing in the rally. Team Raldex Florence Strikes Back is Corey Wallace, General Manager of the Hampton Inn & Suites Florence – North, and Roger Allen, General Manager of the Hampton Inn and Suites – Civic Center in Florence.
Car enthusiasts take note: some of the cars featured include a Vector M-12 and the iconic Back to the Future car.
FIREBALL RUN is streamed live to 1.7 million viewers worldwide during filming. Full edited episodes can been see on Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and Google Play post production in 2016.
Teams will enter downtown Florence on September 30th, the community is invited to welcome the participants from at a 4 p.m. downtown block party starts, including:
• Free ice cream to first 250 kids in the downtown (car show tent)
• Classic car show
• Kelley’s Fine Arts
• Wilson High School Band
• Josh Brannon Band starts at 5pm, plays until 6:30
• Lynches River County Park – animal meet & greet
• ScienceSouth mad scientist with telescope
• Robotics with Williams Middle School and North Vista Elementary
• Boiled peanut sampling – McCall Farms
• Wade Entertainment – carnival games
• Flying Tigers remote control cars
• Super heroes from Legends Comics
When teams leave Florence on October 1st, the community is welcome to join in on the send-off, from the downtown area, 185 W. Evans Street. They will be led out of town by the Harley Owners Group and the Rolling Thunder Veterans motorcycle group. Cars begin to line up at 7:30 a.m., and the official send off is at 9 a.m.
According to sources close to the News and Press, folks here in Darlington County may want to head to a certain location that saw a lot of motorcycles not too long ago; the best time to head over would be between 12:45 and 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 30. But, you did not hear that from me!
