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[/media-credit]Thursday, May 24, 2012
Pit Notes #4: Firefighters Honored as Part of LiftMaster Pole Day
Officials from LiftMaster, sponsor of Thursday’s LiftMaster Pole Day, honored the Albemarle (NC) Fire Department as winner of the inaugural LiftMaster Skills Competition held two weeks ago at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Four area fire departments took part in the contest, which featured skills used in firefighting, including a 75-foot aerial climb and a 150-foot hose drag, and a NASCAR-style pit stop.
The Albemarle Fire Department beat out fire departments from Charlotte, Mount Holly and Kannapolis to win an overhaul of their department’s garage door system. They were honored as part of LiftMaster Pole Day, and led a parade lap of fire trucks from across the Charlotte area before the start of qualifying. Earnhardt/Ganassi Racing driver Jamie McMurray will also have the Albemarle Fire Department logo on his car and his crew will have the logo on their helmets for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600. LiftMaster also donated 4,500 pole night tickets to more than 80 area fire departments.
“We’re proud to be here and honor these leaders,” said Neal Villarin, corporate sponsorship and event marketing manager for LiftMaster. “What this is meant to do is really show the support of the community and say that we are really focusing on security, safety and our product. When these guys are on call, that door opens every time with no delays, no issues in getting out to service the community.”
Albemarle Fire Chief, Shawn Oke noted how special the process has been for his team.
“This has been just an awesome experience.” said Oke. “Just like NASCAR, fire departments are very competitive. To be able to come over here, and be from a smaller town in the Charlotte metro area and beat some of bigger towns, it brought a lot of pride to back to the city of Albemarle. It was an awesome experience for us. We got to come over courtesy of LiftMaster and see Jamie McMurray and his crew and get a little different perspective and see what they go through. I hope that one day we can get them over to our fire house and let them see what we do.”
