Lubbock’s starting to get ready now for a couple hundred or so high-powered visitors who’ll come roaring into town one late September day next
year. The city has been selected as one of the overnight destination cities for the 2010 Fireball Run, a 3,500-mile interstate road rally that combines corporate executives and a creative assortment of costumes and vehicles into a charitable run to help raise awareness for missing children. “We call it the Race to Recover America’s Missing Children,” said J. “J.J.” Sanchez, the Orlando, Fla.-based event’s organizer. Lubbock officials are also looking at it as a way to show the city off quickly to corporate executives who might be thinking the Hub City would be a pleasant place to expand or relocate. Many of the teams entering the event are high-level corporate officials, “people who might consider coming back and building a business in Lubbock,” said Abie Cox, communications director of Visit Lubbock, The Convention and Visitors Bureau. Lubbock Mayor Tom Martin echoed that sentiment. “It’s an opportunity for business leaders from all over the country to see us and consider investing and bring business to the community,” Martin said.
According to a media kit for the event, about 95 percent of the participants are considered “corporate leaders or high level decision makers.”