Beds on wheels with a hint of Vanilla Ice. This is creativity at its best, Miami style.
"It's awesome!" said Robert Van Winkle, better known as rapper Vanilla Ice, who served as Grand Marshal for the event. "You got a crazy bed race going on. You got the people dressed up like ninja turtles coming down the street and I mean they got balloons and cows and bears coming in here. You never know what to expect."
More than twenty teams paraded down Coconut Grove showing off their best inventions. "6 in the Mix" host Roxanne Vargas judged, while NBC6 producer Raf Perez ran with his bearded brothers.
"We don't do no shave November, we do no shave ever," Perez said.
Perez and his teammates have run the in the same bed for three years.
"We've done little minor adjustments every year," said Perez's teammate Scott of Team B.O.M.B. "Probably took us about a week or two weeks to build it."
All of the contestants competed for prizes worth more than $750, but the real winner was the Little Smiles of Florida charity who will receive all proceeds from the race.
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"We visit the hospitals, we put smiles on those children's faces when they're having a down day," said Kathleen Pacheco of Little Smiles of Florida.
According to event organizers, bed racing dates by to the early 1900s. This is the 6th year the organized race and festival has been held in Coconut Grove.
"It's like a typical 5k," said Daisy Holcombe, co-producer of the bed race. "Every racer sends out an email saying, 'Please donate to my bed.' The goal is for each team to donate $250."
Contestants faced off bed to bed for three hours, all hoping to win awards at the finish line including Best Decor, Best Engineered, and Crowd Favorite.
"It's original, it's funny," said Gabriel Ferrer of a team called the Bed-Wetters. "We have the energy, the creativity, we have the mobile with the beer!"
Holcombe said the race is all about having a good time.
"There's extreme racing, and then there's extremely funny racing," Holcombe said. "We take it that way."
