Malcolm Lightner, “Full Throttle” (2013) (all images from ‘Mile o’ Mud: The Culture of Swamp Buggy Racing,’ courtesy PowerHouse Books; all caption information by Malcolm Lightner) The distinctly ...

Like many quirky, homegrown traditions, swamp buggy racing started out small. In the early 1940s, about a dozen hunters in Naples, Florida, who used the strange, jeeplike vehicles to navigate the ...

Racing swamp buggies is deeply rooted in the history of Naples and the surrounding area, including the Everglades. But what are swamp buggies and how did the tradition begin? As one might imagine, ...

“Take these spectral bleachers and fill the air over them with Coppertone and kettle-corn perfume and Skynard and rebel flags snapping,” writes the Southern author Padgett Powell in the introduction ...

Swamp buggy racing just might be the most Florida thing to come out of Florida. Three times each year in Naples, goggled drivers whiz down a flooded dirt track—officially christened the "Mile O’ ...

For nearly a century, Florida’s swamp buggy races have churned mud, engines, and tradition. In Naples, Florida, swamp buggy racing isn’t just a sport — it’s a living tradition. Born from the ingenuity ...

It’s been a long 10 months for swamp buggy racing legend Eddie Chesser. Fresh off his 21st Big Feature win in March, Chesser was itching to defend his title in November, which was supposed to be the ...

Milton Morris was born in West Point, Mississippi, in 1903. In a life that spanned 85 years, perhaps his greatest triumph came in 1955, when he was 52 years old. For years afterward, he tried and ...

After spending his whole life in swamp buggy racing, Brian Langford said the sport just got stale. Terry Langford, his father, started racing in the 1970s, and Brian was born in 1973. The younger ...