You’ve seen it. Five people rush down the street, hands forming a death grip on a piece of furniture found abandoned on the side of the road, their neon sneakers beating against the brick street with each new step. They push, pull, and grimace as they round the famed corner, their stomachs fluttering as the back wheels of their carefully modified sofa fly off the ground for the slightest second. With an adrenaline fueled grunt, egged on by the hysterical crowd, they push just that much harder, with that much more enthusiasm, as their eyes lock onto the finish line, just strides away. Can they make it? They know they can. The roars of the crowd resound in their ears as they emerge victorious, taking those last running steps across the finish before skidding to a halt. They’ve done it, it’s theirs. A new Sofas and Suds champion team is born.
Not gonna lie, I didn’t really get it at first. Far from athletic, you won’t really find me volunteering for any event that requires running (or wearing running shoes). When I first started working at the Imperial back in 2012, I certainly had no aspirations to become a sofa racing champion.
I did, however, want to be on my boss’ good side, so when Mike Smith, creator of Sofas and Suds and hard-ass manager with a heart of gold (have you seen this man with his dog?), asked me if I wanted to be the Imperial Team Captain, I simply leaned in and responded in the way The Office had trained me to answer when asked to co-conspire in something a little crazy…
“Absolutely, I do.”
But everything became clear when he explained Team Imperial’s strategy: start the race as if we mean business, and then give in to our natural inclination to stop, have a cocktail, and take our sweet time crossing the finish line as leisurely as possible.
Oh wait, you mean this is a theatrical ruse of a couch race in which we play on the emotional expectations of the audience in order to create camaraderie and win the popularity contest portion? I’m on it!
But how was Sofas and Suds born?
“I was trying to think of something to create for Orlando, and I was also in the middle of my beer career, so I was doing beerfests all the time,” Smith told me recently. “This was 8 or 9 years ago, and beerfests then were just really bad, held in huge, unshaded parking lots by big breweries who were just in it to make a quick buck.”
Always one to shoot for the moon, Mike didn’t want to throw a beerfest, he wanted to throw the beerfest, a great event in a beautiful setting with good food and things to do. He locked in Lake Eola as a location, and quality craft distributors, but he knew he needed a signature event to make the event truly memorable.
Inspired by the bed races that take place across the country, Mike knew that the Eola cul-de-sac would be the perfect place for something just as wacky. “I researched couch races and didn’t find anything, so I decided to do couch racing as a pieces of the beerfest, but it was far from a standalone event,” he said.
He put on two couch racing events between 2009 and 2010, without gaining too much traction, but when he moved to Downtown Sanford and saw the “wide open streets”, he started dreaming up events that could get us “to the next level”, as he always says, he knew it was time to try couch races again.
It’s hard to deny that the concept of couch racing raises a lot of questions, and at a time when Downtown Sanford didn’t have much to write home about, Mike knew that couch racing was a surefire conversation starter.
“We try to make sure that local businesses predominantly make up the competing teams,” he explained. “It creates this great civic competition, something everyone in town looks forward to each year. They start talking about the last one, and gear up for the next one, and it becomes something the businesses are always thinking about.”
Sofas and Suds has gained a considerable following over the years, drawing about 3,000 people each time, something Mike notes is “a little hard to do in Sanford.” He says the real reason the event works is because it’s so silly, it’s hard not to like.
“It’s exactly what it sounds like,” he laughed. “It’s a bunch of idiots pushing a sofa down the street, but you come out, because you really want to see those idiots pushing the sofa.”
There have been plenty of expected and not-so-expected consequences of the event. “You’re kind of up for anything when you put something like this on, you have to be,” Mike laughed. “If you ever watch me during this event, I’m always standing out there in the middle, chewing my fingernails off.”
As to be expected, we’ve had crashes (who can forget the epic Sanford Flower Shop Barrel Roll of 2013?) and injuries, but the more surprising part is just how into this event the locals get.
“We’ve had a couple of near fights, and I had a local business owner in my face arguing with me over a rule one year,” Mike said. “And you just think, ‘Really? This is so stupid, we are arguing about pushing couches right now’, but it also shows you how committed people get to the competitive nature of the event.” He went on to say that some of the altercations between teams have even led to closer relationships between the businesses, because everyone realizes that they are all in the same fight for Sanford together.
“Last year was the most fun I’ve ever had at the event,” he said. “It’s moving in the right direction. We see teams from businesses that you wouldn’t normally really interact with. You never know what to expect now, and the teams are really taking the themes to the next level.”
For instance, Mike never expected to see a sofa team “drop anchor” and create sparks on the street, or to see one team try to jump onto another team’s sofa. But with all this theatricality and community, where can the event go next?
Mike still has plenty of ideas he’d like to see come to fruition. “I would like to turn it more into an all day festival,” he said, adding that he would love to see bands, a vendor market, and also bring more focus back to beer. “We’ve added the VIP section, which has been pretty successful, but with the other beer events happening in town these days, such as the Bad at Business fest the day before, it’s time to incorporate the beer element back in.”
Even though it’s now been years since I stopped working at the Imperial, I will always (Mike Smith permitting) be the Sofas and Suds Imperial Team Captain. I think this event perfectly encapsulates what we’ve all been trying to achieve in Sanford for as long as I’ve been here. With each additional race, each additional one hundred spectators, each additional dollar spent in a local bar by someone who would never normally dream of coming to Sanford, we’re approaching that elusive finish line, and we’re doing it together.
Mike always says that this town is “poised for greatness”. This November, let’s give it a little push.