Swamp Buggy Racing: NASCAR in the Swamp

So, imagine if you were able to race in the swamp?

Never occurred to you?

If you are a racing fan and love the swamp then you might want to check out swamp buggy racing.

Yes, it’s a thing.

Where can you see this kind of racing?

Southwest Florida is THE place for this type of racing. Naples, Florida has been doing it for the past 75 years.

So how did this sport get started?

A man named Ed Frank from Naples, Florida invented what we know today as the swamp buggy.  As you can imagine, this vehicle was a necessity to navigate in the nearby Everglades in the and this vehicle proved valuable as the Everglades.  It was originally called the “Tumble Bug”, the first prototype was a tall and strange-looking vehicle and was used for just about everything from hunting expeditions around the area or as a family vehicle used in Sunday afternoon outings. Later, with a few dozen hunters, a race was created with these new vehicles. The first events took place around 1943. The races grew over the following years to over 40 racers.

On November 12, 1949, the first official Swamp Buggy Races took place and attended by 50 competitors from Naples, Florida and was attracted a huge crowd. The races grew in size and popularity over the next decade, a race was featured in national television and was attended by a few Hollywood stars.

Races became quite the event as a parade of swamp buggies were -- and continue to be held -- in Naples.

Another rather unique tradition started in 1957 when the winner grabbed the "swamp buggy queen", who was the wife of the winner, and threw her into the mud with her dress on. Ever since then, it is a tradition for the winner and the queen to jump into the mud pit together.

Swamp buggies race over a figure eight track that is flooded with water, around 18" deep in most areas, but over 3 feet in two places called "sippi holes." This bizarre course mimics the terrain for which they were originally invented: Florida's Everglades, the River of Grass. The buggies themselves have skinny little wheels like disks, to offer as little resistance to the water as possible. During the first few seconds of the race, these wheels dig into the mud bottom, soon shooting up a fantail of muddy water. The swamp buggies are souped up with 900 horsepower V8 engines with 68 inch wheels.  Most are built with NASCAR engines and can reach speeds up to 90 miles per hour.

The current top swamp buggy racers are Brian Langford, Taylor Edmonds and David Brewer who were the top finishers in the most recent 2023-24 Budweiser Cup Finals. The racers name their buggies such as Rubber Duck (Langford), Your Mom (Edmonds) and Backdraft (Brewer).

Other top racers from the Budweiser Cup were Eddie Chester, Marc Birkenmeyer and David Rodriquez.

Winners by class were Brian Langford (Pro-Modified), Taylor Edmonds (V-8 Sportsman), Jason McCandless (6 Cylinder), Allen Meyers (Air Cooled) and Marc Birkenmeyer (Jeep).

If you're thinking of getting into Swamp Buggy racing, you will need anywhere from $25,000 up to $228,000 depending on the size and build you want for the vehicle.  The average total purse on a racing weekend is about $10,000.    

There is even a video game called "Swamp Buggy Racing" which was developed by American studio Daylight Productions and released by WizardWorks for Microsoft Windows. The game features four swamp buggies and two swamp race tracks. There are two race modes: single races and heat races in which two vehicles race each other. The game also includes a practice mode but does not offer a multiplayer option. The buggies cannot be customized aside from the choice of racing views which includes an in-car point of view.

Watch this YouTube video of the 75th annual races: https://youtu.be/BvpRl_-exds?si=KtpvOeK9_TChcnpr

For more on swamp buggy racing: https://www.swampbuggy.com

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