Florida Off-Roading and Mudding

I have been off-roading in Florida for about 15 years with most of my time spent in the mud. Mudding is popular in Florida because the land is flat and there are no rocks around. We try to find dirt roads or paths through the woods that lead us to mud holes.

Over the last two decades, mudding has evolved quite a bit. Back in the day, it was more common to find 33-to-35-inch tires and maybe some 38s on trucks. Now, the norm is considered to be 44-inch tractor tires. However, times have changed big time. Trucks have gotten bigger and faster. I’ve seen guys who use 2.5 ton Rockwell axles all the way to pantry axles, tractor tires instead of radials, and motors from stock or mild upgrades to full blown motors. Everyone just wants the largest trucks they can afford.

Mudding events happen pretty frequently in Florida. There are mud runs almost every weekend and larger events every other month. Usually, events draw about 2,000 trucks and about 10,000 people over one weekend. These events have an open mud hole with folks trying to drive their off road vehicles through it. If you get stuck, hopefully someone will be nice enough to pull you out.

In the end, you’ll find trucks, 4 wheelers, and platform buggies driving around covered in mud. Some platform buggies just drive around but the last time we were out mudding, two of the buggies drag raced in the mud. That was great to watch. It’s also funny to watch kids on 4 wheelers playing in the mud and getting covered from head to toe.

The only downfall to some of these events is that the heat in the summer months gets a little intense; in fact, big events are stopped during the summer because of the heat. Soon it will get cooler and then it will be very nice to go and spend all day out in the sun and mud. In my future blogs, I’ll provide more details about my weekends spent out at the mud holes.