Hot time at Fired Up

With a festival name like Fired Up, a little heat is assumed.

But the heat was a little too much on Saturday.

Hot weather probably depressed crowd sizes at the 13th edition of the Tucumcari downtown festival, especially in the afternoon when temperatures reached 97 degrees and remained in the 90s until the early evening.

According to Weatherspark.com, that was nearly 10 degrees hotter than the Tucumcari norm for mid-September.

Connie Loveland, executive director of Tucumcari MainStreet that organizes the festival, reported Sunday afternoon that people-counters used by volunteers at the festival area tallied 2,651 attendees. About 3,200 attended last year.

The heat prompted some afternoon festival-goers to seek shade or duck inside climate-controlled buildings, such as VFW Post 2528 or the east room of the Tucumcari Railroad Museum.

Loveland said it was the hottest Fired Up she could remember.

"Ninety-seven degrees in the middle of September on the pavement, I was worn out," she said Saturday night after the festival concluded. "Yeah, I would say the heat" caused the smaller crowd numbers.

She noted, however, that crowd sizes increased as the sun began to lower, taking an edge off the heat.

The crowds swelled to several hundred people Saturday night at the depot's main outdoor stage for the seminal performance by Odd-Lab and its fiery choreography. The Tucumcari chapter of Altrusa International was the sponsor of that act.

Loveland said Saturday night she hadn't talked to all the vendors, but at least two food booths - Tucumcari-based Loretta's Burrito Hut, in particular - sold out of burgers.

"Food vendors, I think, did pretty good," she said.

Fired Up wasn't without setbacks.

A scheduled car-hop demonstration Saturday afternoon by hydraulically powered low-riders was canceled after the vehicles' owners encountered trailer problems on Interstate 40 en route to Tucumcari.

The Rollerz Only car show continued, with about 35 entries of classic or modified cars, motorcycles and even bicycles.

Steven Roybal, the organizer for the car show, said nine cash awards were presented. The remainder, about $100, was given to the family of fallen New Mexico State Police officer Justin Hare.

Roybal said he plans to double the size of the car show next year.

The fireworks show set to conclude the festival was cut short after a few minutes after several exploded just a few feet into the air.

"I called it because they were breaking too close to the ground near the crowd for my comfort," she said.

The Odeon Theatre hosted the annual Prince Tocom and Princess Kari children's pageant on Saturday afternoon. An estimated 50 people watched as Le Angelo Bryant and Avery Aughtman were named the winners.

The festival drew its share of non-residents. Out-of-town visitors were invited at the Tucumcari MainStreet booth to place pins on a map of from where they came. Pins were placed on faraway places such as California, Oregon, Maryland and Colorado.

One visitor stuck a pin on a bottom corner of the map, representing her home base of the Eastern Caribbean island of St. Lucia.