It's a race, a film, a TV series, a live internet stream and most importantly a way to help find missing children across the country.
'The Fireball Run' has made its way from Ohio to New York, and on Wednesday night, it rolled right through Schenectady.
The competing teams hit eight points of interest here in the Capital Region, and the finish line was at that Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia.
In case you have never heard of it, The Fireball Run is a race and treasure hunt undertaken by celebrities, billionaires, astronauts, pro athletes and movie stars.
Participants use their celebrity status, and super-expensive, famous cars, including the DeLorean used in Back to the Future II, to grab public attention for the cause.
Here's how it works: 40 teams in 40 different vehicles each tour through cities across the country, learning about the local community through a scavenger hunt type competition.
Along the way competitors hand out approximately 50-thousand fliers in an effort to recover missing children nationwide.
And the event has been quite successful so far.
Organizers say The Fireball Run has actually helped to locate 38 missing kids since the event was created in 2007.
Don Rittner is the Commissioner for the Schenectady Film Commission which helped to organize the 'Capital Region leg' of the competition.
Rittner said, "Each team represents a missing child from their area. And as they're going through different cities and doing different tasks they're passing out thousands of missing children fliers, and we actually have a car in this race this year, and they're passing out a flier for Craig Frear, who is our missing teenager from Scotia. He was 17-years-old when he disappeared in 2004."
At first glance, the parking lot of the Glen Sanders Mansion just looked like a big sports car show, but the high end cars on display were much more than just 'cool to look at.'
Each famous vehicle had a purpose, and a message.
Fireball Run competitor and Long Beach Grand Prix winner and professional race car driver Shea Holbrook said, "We're trying to give a voice back to children that have gone missing because, when you think about it, after a year of a child going missing, they've lost that voice. For everyone else life goes on, and news crews move on to different topics because there's new things happening every day that they have to cover. And so Fireball Run's soul purpose is to help give these children a voice."
Paul 'Doc' Nigh dresses just like 'Doc' from the movie Back to the Future II, and travels with the modified DeLorean along with 'Team Time Car' every year through The Fireball Run.
He said, "Forty teams are crossing the nation, in forty of the coolest cars you'll ever see in your life, each one representing one of America's missing children."
Nigh went on to say, "I've had a lot of people come up and say a lot of different things about us. They call us everything from 'heroes' to 'milk cartons on wheels.' We might be the milk cartons on wheels, but we're definitely not heroes. What we do is we're pot stirrers. We get out there, and we do stuff like this, and we generate millions upon millions of dollars worth of mass media, just like you interviewing us right now. And that gets the word out. And it's the people out there that actually take the information that we give them who help."
Every year dozens of celebrities lend their name, and their famous vehicles in locations from Ohio to Maine just trying to do their best to help find missing children.
Nigh said, "The little boy that I'm looking for, he's been missing for 15 years. The last time that his mom saw him, he was an infant."
Holbrook said, "My child is Donald Jackson who would be about three years old now. He went missing when he was an infant."
And not only is the effort paying off, but one team participating in this year's Fireball Run actually located the missing child they've been looking for just last week!
Terry Stewart is the President and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
This year he's driving a high end Fisker across the country for the cause.
He was overjoyed to report that their 'missing child' is no longer missing.
"They found her about three days before we left! So we're very excited. Everything is good. She's safe, she's back home so it's great," Stewart said.
And having celebrity power like Astronaut Jon McBride, who has been around the world 133 times in outer space, makes all the difference.
McBride said, "On the back of my NASA picture, is a picture of our missing child. So anybody that takes one of my pictures, they're going to have this with them for as long as they've got this picture. So maybe one of these days they'll run into her, and help her get back to her family."
McBride is from Virginia, and says he is now a big fan of the Capital Region.
"It's nice to be here in Schenectady. I haven't been here before, but since we got here this morning, it's been nothing but people wanting to help and help to find these missing kids. You'd be surprised at how many people are interested in that issue," the world renowned astronaut said.
Stewart says it's vitally important to keep these children's faces out in the public eye, and on the news.
"We get kind of immune to the fact that they're gone. You (news) folks, you run the alerts, and that sort of thing, but after a while, it sort of just fades into the mist of time. So at least on this helps. You've got a bunch of people, riding in a very high-profile event for two weeks across part of America promoting the fact that these kids are still gone, that they're still not part of our lives. So through this, you've got a chance that maybe some of them will be found, come forward or be discovered. So it is a good cause," Stewart said from the seat of his Fisker.
But The Fireball Run crew needs your help to get the job done.
Rittner asks that those who live in New York download a new 'app' called 'Missing Children of New York.'
The app is free, and can be downloaded to any Android or iPhone.
The teams are hoping you'll take the time to look through the hundreds of photos of missing Empire State children on the app to see if there are any that you recognize, or may have any information about.
For more information on The Fireball Run, or to find out how to contact the group with tips click here.
