Motorsport events are the safest places to practice pretend engine noises without attracting lawn mowers in heat. Rev up with this Groupon.
$12 for Entry for Four to the Budweiser Cup Spring Classic Swamp-Buggy Practice Race ($24 Value)
On Saturday, March 2, at Florida Sports Park, swamp-buggy racers whip their vehicles around a muddy figure-eight-shaped track in preparation for the next day’s Budweiser Cup Spring Classic. Gates open at 10:30 a.m., and drivers practice throughout the day while spectators watch from grandstand-style seating and nosh on snacks from food vendors.
Swamp Buggy Races
Driving a motor vehicle into a swamp generally sounds like a recipe for disaster, unless the vehicle in question is a swamp buggy. Outfitted with balloon tires and gun racks, swamp buggies originated in the 1930s as a mode of hunting in Naples’ otherwise impenetrable bogs. Years later, buggy owners started an off-season tradition to complement their hunting: swamp-buggy racing. For more than 60 years, Swamp Buggy Races has kept the tradition alive, growing from informal competitions held in muddy potato patches to a thrice-yearly event at Florida Sports Park. Drivers zoom around a track dubbed the Mile O’ Mud, dotted with sinkhole-like “sippy holes” that can only be traversed with sufficient horsepower or with help from a chivalrous man willing to lay down his sturdy coat. As buggies whir past, fans cheer on their favorite buggy from grandstand-style seats and delight in the race’s finale, the Swamp Buggy Queen’s Annual Mudbath, in which the year’s beauty pageant queen is dunked in the track’s sloppiest segment.