Martinsville almost didn’t have fireworks celebration

Power is being hooked up.  Lights are being checked, audio tweaked and the speakers are stacked sky high.  Martinsville Speedway is getting ready for Friday night’s “Celebration 2009”.  With it comes rides, entertainment with a Phil Vassar concert, fireworks and it’s totally free.

Steve Eanes and his team have been working all day to get the fireworks ready.

“Some of them are smiley faces, some of them are bees, some of them are the golden palms that float down,” said Eanes.

Over eight-hundred shots of pyrotechnic wonder will be shot into the air for the thirty minute show.

“It’s probably on of the best fireworks shows you’d see anywhere in the state and you probably have to go to Disney World or somewhere to see it,” said track President Clay Campbell.

Campbell says because of the cooler weather, they’re expecting one of their biggest crowds ever to fill these grand stands.  They’re expecting over thirty-thousand people to attend.  The price tag is over one-hundred-thousand dollars.  Campbell says the free event almost didn’t happen this year.

“Last year we had issues with some of the companies that started with the funding of the event,” said Campbell.

He says after the big corporate sponsors dropped out, there was talk about canceling this year’s event.  Then local businesses pledged support.

“It just shows you how much care the people in this area have.  That the businesses stepped forward and took up the slack.  They didn’t want to see this event go away,” said Campbell.

Campbell says Martinsville’s Independence Day celebration has a solid future.

“It’s going to be bigger and better than ever and I see it continuing for a long time to come,” said Campbell.