The following is an opinion of The Flint Journal Editorial Board.

FLINT, MI --

Congratulations, Flint and Genesee County – you pulled it off.

From the organizers to the participants to the spectators, everyone who had a hand in this year's Back to the Bricks and Crim Festival of Races accomplished another stunning and successful year of back-to-back, monumental events.

In fact, the summer was filled with proud moments the entire community can celebrate.

Spectacles like Bricks, the Crim, Warrior Dash and other festivals, including this fall's upcoming Bikes on the Bricks, showcase Flint's best face in front of a collective audience of hundreds of thousands of people. It was thrilling to be able to observe, to document and to participate in all of them.

The city's skeptics would be hard-pressed to look at a photograph of wall-to-wall crowds streaming up and down Saginaw Street and claim Flint lacks tourist potential. Regardless of this city's problems, and we know that it certainly has some serious ones, Flint shined bright in the spotlight during these past several weeks.

Like any marvelous production, a heartfelt standing ovation is owed, in particular, to the creators, organizers and volunteers who made it all come to life. Officials said close to 60,000 people hit downtown for the Crim, and estimated Back to the Bricks saw its largest crowd ever.

These events are so spectacular, that we can't help but wish there were even more of them.

Both the Crim and Back to the Bricks are perfect examples of grassroots festivals that took hold and flourished after being embraced wholeheartedly by the community -- a formula to be replicated. Flint has also seen success with smaller events, too, such as the Flint Fire & Ice Festival, New Year's Eve and the Taste of Downtown -- and we expect they will also grow in the years to come under the initiative of the city's champions.

We hope that more people – more dreamers and doers like Al Hatch and Bobby Crim – will build on their momentum and realize the enormous potential in Flint and Genesee County.