In the second bed race at a Brandon pub, six teams competed on souped-up chariots with tricked out headboards and mattresses.
By JAY CRIDLIN
Published October 10, 2003
It takes most people a few minutes to make their bed. It took Mike Hooks three hours and half a case of beer.
For Hooks, "making the bed" meant rigging a gurney with wheels and handlebars in his back yard. He was preparing for last Saturday's second annual bed race at O'Brien's Irish Pub in Brandon. Six teams competed on chariots made of headboards, mattresses and bedspreads.
In all, the teams raised about $6,000 for the Hillsborough County Fire Fighters Charities Inc.
"It's a lot of fun when you get the teams to make up their own bed with their own design and compete against each other," said organizer Sean Rice of O'Brien's.
For the second straight year, the Seffner-Mango Volunteer Fire Department, racing a fire truck bed outfitted with a siren and flashing red lights, raised about $5,000 - more than any other team.
Other colorful carriers included an ambulance stretcher, a Christmas sleigh and a NASCAR-themed bed painted to resemble Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 8 car.
The beds raced two at a time on a makeshift track measuring about 1,000 feet in the O'Brien's parking lot.
Mike Hooks and Hooks Heating and Gas brought home the checkered bedspread with a camouflage gurney adorned with a pair of inflatable pumpkins.
"It was a great feeling," Hooks said. "Everybody benefitted from it, and that doesn't happen enough."
Last year, the Seffner-Mango Volunteer Fire Department team spent two days putting together the bed and came in second. This year, the team used the same bed but finished well out of first.
"It's fun, but it becomes serious competition when they're up there racing," said Chief Bradley Price.
Last year's inaugural bed race raised about $3,900 for cystic fibrosis research.
The $6,000 raised this year is earmarked for the charity's Widows and Orphans Fund, said Karl Schmitt, president of the Hillsborough County Fire Fighters union.
"This charity's only about a year old, and getting the fund established is so important," Schmitt said.
Price and Rice said they hope more fire departments participate next year.
"Hopefully it'll be more competitive, with more designs," Rice said. "There's already people going back to their blueprints and redo their beds to make them a lot faster."
- Correspondent Luis Santana contributed to this report. Jay Cridlin can be reached at 661-2442 or cridlin@sptimes.com
