Brenda Sawyer has been an emergency worker for the town of Oxford for nearly 30 years. So when Wiscasset Speedway opened its track and infield for a Touch a Truck event Sept. 21, she didn’t want to miss a chance to share her love of all things public safety with her young grandson, Tristan Sawyer of Bristol.

“I’m hoping to pass along the interest to his generation,” she said.

Like other event-goers, the two, along with Tristan’s father Charlie Sawyer, walked around taking in sights that included commercial trucks, race cars and police and other emergency vehicles from around Lincoln County.

Game Warden Doug Kulis was there representing the Maine Warden Service.

“It’s a chance to meet everybody, children or adults, so they can just see you as a person, not in an enforcement situation,” Kulis said.

Damariscotta Police Officer Jim Dotson also welcomed the opportunity. He was giving away stuffed animals and stickers, and showing visitors the inside of a department vehicle and how he sets off its siren.

Hours of off-and-on rain cleared just before the start of the event at the speedway on West Alna Road, leaving only some sopping walking over parts of the infield grass.

Friendship’s Ashley Rancor took a ride all the way around the track with daughter Hailey Hobbs, 5, and son Tayler Benner, 2, on a 1937 fire truck that Boothbay Railway Village volunteer Brian Fanslau brought to Sunday’s event.

“They love anything to do with fire trucks,” their mother said. The children’s father serves on Friendship’s fire department.

“It was good. I liked it,” Hailey Hobbs said about the ride on the old truck.

“The kids really like it. We have a good time,” Fanslau said about Boothbay Railway Village joining in on events like the one in Wiscasset. “It’ a good way to get the kids involved in ... all this old stuff.”

The event’s organizer,  Aubrey Martin of Wiscasset, planned it as a fundraiser for an important cause to her, the March of Dimes. Her first son was born at 23 weeks and died hours later. She credits the March of Dimes’ research, along with care she received at Maine Medical Center, with her second son and a daughter.

“That’s why I do so much for them,” Martin said about her fundraising efforts for the organization.

The Touch a Truck event raised $7,250 for the March of Dimes, and additional money for Coastal Kids Preschool scholarships for families who demonstrate need, Martin said.

More than 500 people attended the three-hour event, she said.