Mars is taking off-roading to new heights during Bantam Jeep festival
The planets are aligning this summer when the Mars New Year Festival will coincide with the annual Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival this year.
The biennial Mars New Year Festival is taking place in downtown Mars starting on Friday, June 9, and running through Saturday, June 10. This year the Mars festival will be combining with the annual Jeep festival for an all-new exhibit on the all-electric Jeep both days.
Mayor Gregg Hartung is looking forward to the blending of the two traditions in Butler County.
“I think it’s special,” Hartung said. “I think we as a community are able to both honor the past with the Bantam Jeep festival while celebrating the future with all we’re doing here at the Mars New Year Festival.”
Diehl Automotive will be providing the electrical Jeep, according to sitting committee member Geoff Nara. The Jeep festival runs from Friday through Sunday.
“The [all-electric Jeep] display came about because we wanted to try and identity an interesting way of promoting the two festivals together,” Nara said. “ We wanted something very contemporary and modern.”
The Mars New Year Festival is an observation of the planet Mars’ orbit around the sun, which occurs every 689 Earth days. The borough of Mars has partnered with NASA to help celebrate the event.
“NASA has been an integral part of the events we have for Friday and Saturday,” Nara said. “Since NASA is engaged, we try to do a lot of things that are technical along the lines of what the exploration of Mars would be.”
The Mars rover will be at the Mars festival, along with artifacts from NASA. The weekend also will be filled with speakers and educational opportunities for people to learn about NASA’s mission.
“We’re trying to encourage young minds and engage them to be excited about space travel and the space industry,” Nara said. “Especially with NASA joining us, they’re looking for the next Mars astronauts and for people who could work at NASA.”
Along with the all-electric Jeep display, the Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival will be taking their annual “Jeep and Seek” event to a “whole ’nother planet.”
The Mars New Year Festival will be one of the stops on the “Jeep and Seek“ scavenger hunt. The first 200 registered participants of the “Jeep and Seek” will be given a “Martian rubber duck,” an alien take on the beloved Jeep rubber duck tradition.
“Jeep owners have these interesting customs,” Nara said. “They put these rubber ducks on each others Jeeps. We thought we’d do something unique. We got these green rubber ducks with big ears that we are going to share with people from the ‘Jeep and Seek’ scavenger hunt.”
With the possibility of inhabiting another planet becoming more likely with every decade, the mayor of Mars borough believes the bridging of these two events might be a sneak peek into the future.
“I think these events complement each other pretty well,” Hartung said. “Who knows what kind of vehicles will be on Mars if we ever inhabit it? I think there’s a good chance it will be an all electric Jeep.”
