This Week in Weird Sports: Bed Racing

“The sport for athletes who don’t get laid”

“The sport for athletes who don’t get laid”


No one is certain, but the story goes that a group of MIT students who’d just watched the second Back to the Future movie (for the 6th time that week) figured that their mattresses would be better put to use as hoverboards instead of as a mating surface. Once they realized they weren’t that smart, they gave in, invested in wheels and challenged the geeks from the school across the street to a little race.


In Bed Racing, racers compete in teams of between four and six, plus one teammate on the bed. The bed runs on four wheels, but also needs floating capabilities since, at a certain point, Bed Racers must take to sea and sail across a stream on their mattress.


For those lucky few who win Bed Races, wetting the bed never seemed like such an accomplishment.