Dover Motor Speedway will use its upcoming NASCAR race weekend week to honor hometown fire heroes.
This is 13th year Dover Motor Speedway is teaming up with the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation (NFFF).
“This has evolved over time; it was a really large-scale hospitality program that we hosted for many, many years," says Gary Camp - the vice president of marketing and communications with the Dover Motor Speedway. "COVID kind of put a damper on that for a couple of years but we’re back at it this year. We’ve created an $89 ticket package with proceeds from that going right back to the organization (NFFF). There is a component in our fan zone, where there'll be some things for fans to see as it relates to the fire service; there will be fire trucks.”
Camp says demonstrations are also planned, including showing how firefighters cut people out of cars.
He notes there will also be tributes to three Baltimore City firefighters and the fire chief of Clayton, who all recently died in the line of duty.
Race weekend at the Monster Mile starts on Friday, April 29 and runs through Sunday, May 1.
This weekend’s tripleheader race at the Monster Mile will be the first full-fan-capacity-allowed NASCAR race since October 2019.
Camp says, “At the end of the day when we’re done with this, we hope to break the $1 million mark. So we have been working with the NFFF, like I mentioned, for 13 years and over the course of those 13 years, we’re at $962,000 that we’ve donated back to the cause - through that relationship.”
Camp says this partnership is critical to the Dover Motor Speedway because of their relationship with the emergency service community and first responders with Dover Air Force Base (DAFB).
Family members attending as guests of the NFFF will take one lap around the Monster Mile on top of fire trucks - just before the DuraMAX Drydene 400 NASCAR Cup Series race, which is set to begin at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 1, 2022.
Also, one of the First State’s favorite sons is returning home for Dover Motor Speedway’s biggest NASCAR weekend ever.
Multi-platinum selling, award-winning country music superstar Jimmie Allen will perform a pre-race concert at the Monster Mile before the DuraMAX Drydene 400 presented by RelaDyne NASCAR Cup Series race.
Allen’s concert is scheduled for Sunday, May 1 at 12:45 p.m. on the Embrace Home Loans stage in Victory Plaza.
Dover’s Monster Mile race weekend comes just three days before the international Shine Your Light for Firefighters Day on Wednesday, May 4, 2022, during which communities, public facilities and fire departments will light homes and buildings in red to support the IFD.
