Though it rained

both days of the 6th Annual Great Georgia Air Show, that didn't stop near-record

crowds from coming out to Peachtree City's Falcon Field over the weekend.

Brief showers

fell early Saturday and then again around noon on Sunday, but the skies

opened up for the main events in the afternoon.

That's a break

from last year, when heavy storms pummeled Falcon Field on the weekend

of the air show, cancelling it entirely. The Kiwanis Club of Peachtree

City and the Dixie Wing Historical Preservation and Education Programs,

chief organizers of the air show, had to swallow the financial loss.

But Greg Hall,

air show chairman, said Monday night that the show "would be within

budget. We had a Kiwanis Club meeting tonight, and that's what I told

them."

That would

suggest all the bills get paid, and from the looks of the crowds on Sunday,

ticket sales were swift. Hall, who was called out of town late Monday

due to a death in the family, said final attendance figures for the two-day

event are yet to be determined.

Organizers

had hoped for 10,000 spectators, and from the number of folks being shuttled

back and forth from parking areas at the Starr's Mill school complex on

Sunday, that figure might have been conservative.

"I was

told we parked nearly 1,000 cars in the field (overflow) at Peeple's Elementary,"

Hall said, after all the surface parking spaces at Starr's Mill High,

Rising Starr Middle and Peeple's Elementary schools filled up.

The show, now

in its sixth year, has been a major attraction for aircraft aficionados

from all over the nation, and many in Sunday's appeared to hail from all

over metro Atlanta. Scott Slade, morning news anchor for media sponsor

WSB-AM, was master of ceremonies.

The star attraction

was an unusual contraption called the Chevy Jet Truck, which travels from

zero to 334 miles per hour in one-half mile. In a race down the Falcon

Field runway against an airplane, the truck won by a long shot.

The crowd ate

it up, though the entire race lasted less than 10 seconds.