There are enduring traditions in the world of motorsports. The drinking of milk at the end of the Indy 500, the champagne shower at the end of LeMans, the dunking of a young woman at the end of the swamp buggy races…wait, what? Yeah, one of the things that has been happening forever in Florida at the swamp buggy races is the “dunking of the swamp queen” by the winning driver. The woman has won the beauty contest and has represented the event all weekend long and then when the whole thing is over, she and the winning driver leap off his or her vehicle into the murky, swampy Naples, Florida water. We’re nearly 100% sure they still do it today. Back in ’64 it was a little different though.
When you see this dunk job, you’ll notice that the driver does not go whole hog with it. Instead he just kind of hits the deck with the girl and she seems super unenthusiastic about the whole thing, especially when it comes to the post-dunk ride around the swamp. She is holding on like a person clinging to stuff on a sinking ship. Apparently scared for her life, the owner of the buggy presumably went as fast and as far as he could with her freaking out. Why? We’re sure that seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
This dude’s buggy is great, especially the boat nose that is kind of half-ass grafted onto the front of the whole rig. It is not cutting through the surf but it looks just wonky enough to work. We love everything about this video and the fact that this weird tradition is still going on.
