Clarksville, TN – The City of Clarksville has been selected as the sixth stop on the 2011 Chevrolet Fireball Run Adventurally. The teams will arrive in Clarksville on Thursday September 29th between 3:00pm-4:00pm. Once they arrive in Clarksville the teams will have several tasks to complete before they head for the finish line in Historic Downtown Clarksville. The Drivers will stay over night before leaving at 8:00am the following morning as Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan waves the green flag kicking off the next leg of the rally.
This unique competition begins its southern excursion on September 23rd in Melbourne, FL, and ends on October 1st in Gulfport, MS, with plenty of action and sights along the route. The Chevrolet Fireball Run Adventurally Series is an action packed, one week, 2500 mile Adventurally production. The mission and destination based rally competition is live cast, filmed in 1080p HD for broadcast, theatrical release, and it will be released on home video.
On Thursday June 16th, Mayor McMillan hosted a news conference at City Hall to provide more information about our city’s selection as a stop on the Fireball Run.
The Press conference was opened by James Chavez President & CEO of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council. He began by playing a video of Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan highlighting Clarksville’s best features as the newest destination on the 2011 Fireball Run.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xN8z_-0DF4[/youtube]
The video was created by Rick Goodwin of Goodwin Productions.
After the video finished playing, Chavez introduced Mayor McMillan and turned the press conference over to her.
“I want to thank everyone for being here today. We are so excited to host this competition, and as you saw in the video we want to really show off Clarksville and the hospitality that we have here. This is such a unique event that I think we are so fortunate to have them come and participate in this rally. I hope that everyone will continue to follow online,” said Mayor McMillan.
As many as 50 teams will set out across seven Southern states in vehicles ranging from exotic sport cars to movie cars in a sort of road rally/scavenger hunt that will be filmed as a documentary and distributed by NBC Universal Studios.
Mayor McMillan then spoke about some of the celebrity drivers in the 2011 Fireball Run, including Former NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine and Space Shuttle Astronaut Winston Scott.
“These competitors are not rebels without a cause however and as you hear more about it, they are really promoting and trying to bring awareness to America’s Missing Children Campaign,” said McMillan. One of the primary functions of the Fireball run is to help bring awareness to missing children with its Race to Recover America’s Missing Children campaign.
Additionally, a donation is made to a local charity in each of the host cities along the route. So Mayor McMillan has selected the local Project F.U.E.L. program to be the beneficiary of the Fireball Run donation for Clarksville. Project F.U.E.L. helps provide nutritious foods on weekends and holidays for children, who get the majority of their nutrition while at school.
The Producers also encourage the business leaders of the City of Clarksville to enter a team in the race, and to represent a missing child from this region.
The exposure Clarksville will receive can lead to new economic investment in our community as top business leaders from all across our nation Discover Clarksville and learn about our city.
Mayor McMillan then introduced J.J Sanchez, the Executive Producer of the Chevrolet FIREBALL RUN® Adventurally.
“Mayor, you made a number of other Mayor’s that are on the Fireball Run a little jealous, because your video just got up, and when they saw the production quality of your video, they were like ‘That’s pretty good can we do ours again?’,” Sanchez said.
He described the overall theme of the Fireball Run, “What we do is we give people an interactive journey through the United States. The Chevrolet Fireball Run is likened to the Amazing Race only in the United States. There is no reason to go anywhere else but this country to explore some great fascinating locations.”
Sanchez then discussed how they chose the stops on the rally.
“We do not choose tier 1 destinations, we choose tier 2 and tier 3 destinations. As one of our show announcers put it, ‘these are the places you typically fly over’. We choose them on the basis of economic opportunity, prosperity, and quality of life.”
The Fireball Run attracts Celebrities, National Business Leaders, Senior Level Executive from large corporations, civil servant, active duty military, or retirees from any of those categories. These people range from Small Business owners to Billionaires.
The vehicles can be of any kind, and does not have to be a Chevy Model. They will be driving everything from Camero’s to Bentley’s. There will be several Television and Movie cars participating in this year’s rally. A General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard, “Of course we have a General Lee, you can’t do a southern excursion without it!” said Sanchez. The Back to the Future Car, which was used in the second movie of the franchise. Knight Rider from the recent television series. An Andy Griffith show Police car that was used in the series; the business leaders who are using that vehicle will be costumed as members of the cast from the show. Bumblebee from the Transformers Movie.
Sanchez discussed contributions that the Fireball Run teams make to our society. The drivers aid in the recovery of America’s missing children. Each team is assigned a missing child from their hometown region. That image and likeness of that child is placed on the team’s vehicle. They are also given 1,000 posters to distribute from one side of America to the other to aid in the recovery of America’s missing children. To date the Fireball Run has aided in the recovery of 37 missing children so far. “It’s not because we find them,” said Sanchez, “it’s because of all of the great folks from the media that descend on this event.”
Last year the Fireball Run had an audience of 6.7 million people. This year for the first time ever the Rally will be going completely live. You will be able to watch the Race live from the Fireball Run Web site. Each vehicle will have a GPS locator device and you can follow the cars as they travel across America. You can click on each car and find out who’s driving it. You can also chat with the teams as descend on Clarksville. Our goal is to allow you to engage completely with the race as it happens.
We welcome anyone from the community to out to the finish line to see the cars as they arrive. You can get autographs from the Drivers. Each vehicle in the rally will contain up to 50 QR Codes that you can scan with your cell phones, with some linking to prizes.
In order for the teams to score the points and ultimately win the game they must accomplish tests on each of the destination cities along the route’s geography, history, and culture. You can also try to guess who will be the winner of the Fireball Run, whoever comes closest in points will actually win an entry in the 2012 Fireball Run that will be held in the Northeast United States.
Sanchez closed his remarks with “You guys have a wonderful community, and the people (the teams) will have a wonderful time. I am absolutely quite confidence that the people who are in it so far have never been to Clarksville, but they will come away with a unique experience in Clarksville, and one that they will never forget.”
When he was asked “What was the one thing that made them choose Clarksville as one of the stops this year,” Sanchez pointed out Theresa Harrington, the Executive Director CVB and Vice President EDC. “Mrs Theresa was the motivation behind picking Clarksville as a destination on the Fireball Run. We start with a platform in each region of around 30 cities, and we whittle it down from there. Theresa had a great story for the community. She felt there was a lot of exciting and unique things to do out here that maybe hadn’t gotten out to the world. We will probably have about 7 million viewers online all of whom will know about Clarksville, TN as a result of the Fireball Run.”
For more information on the Fireball Run, go to www.fireballrun.com.
About Project F.U.E.L.
Project F.U.E.L. feeds hungry children in the Clarksville/Montgomery County school system. Over twelve hundred school children leave school on Friday, and don’t have a solid meal again until they return to school on Monday.
Project F.U.E.L. is the life’s mission of Denise Skidmore, who was led to this effort by her Christian faith. “I was searching for a purpose in my life, wondering what would be my footprint if I were to die today” she said, “I want to feed every child I can. I won’t stop until they are all taken care of”.
About the Race to Recover America’s Missing Children
The Race to Recover America’s Missing Children Foundation was started by the participants of the Fireball Run in memory of the plight of missing kids from all across America.
The Fireball Run Adventurally elicits $29 million in media exposure which we focus on our Race to Recover America’s Missing Children – the country’s largest and longest “active recovery effort” for missing and abducted children.
Every Fireball Run team is assigned a child missing from their home region. While competing in the adventure it’s their mission to distribute 1000 posters throughout the journey in an effort to raise awareness for and aid in the recovery of that missing child.
Annually Fireball Run distributes nearly 75,000 posters which to date has aided in the recovery effort of an unprecedented 37 missing children.
Video
Complete video of the Mayor’s Press Conference.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjOrdecuqM[/youtube]
