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Rain in the forecast and continuing COVID-19 concerns did not prevent a strong turnout at the Franklin Cruise-In Kickoff on April 24, as 115 vehicles participated in the event.

“With the weather, we exceeded our expectations,” Cruise-In Kickoff organizer Ray Smith said. “We’re really pleased. It went over well.”

The cruise-in, which draws participants from around the Tidewater area, extends across a portion of downtown Franklin, going from 2nd Avenue to Bogart Street and occupying parts of Main Street in between, including an adjacent parking lot.

“We always have a kickoff at the start of all of our years, and then we do this every Wednesday night throughout the year,” Smith said. “We’ll have a grand finale in October. We had 115 cars today, we’ll probably have 400 cars in October, and every Wednesday night we’ll have from 60 to 100 cars.”

Franklin Cruise-In’s first Wednesday event for 2021 was April 28, and Smith said the Wednesday sessions will run from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Participants will have a chance to win as much as $3,000, which stems from individual $1,000 prizes that correspond to three different classifications of vehicles — 72 years and older; 71 years and younger; and pickup trucks and motorcycles.

Each time a participant enters a vehicle in one of the cruise-in events, they receive a ticket corresponding to the relevant classification of their vehicle. The number of tickets they accrue equals the number of chances they will have to win the drawing of the $1,000 pot for the relevant classification.

“At the end of the year, the grand finale, we draw a ticket for each class, and each class wins $1,000 in cash for a lucky drawer,” Smith said.

A participant can be in the running for the $1,000 prize in all three categories if they have vehicles that match each class’ criteria and enter them in a Franklin Cruise-In event.