Be honest, car people. When you see a parade, at least a part of you wonders what’s under the float and what it would be like to drive one. Well, I have answers for you. I recently drove the 2017 Lucy Pet Products Tournament of Roses Parade float.
The basis of your average parade float is pretty simple: a frame, an engine, a drivetrain, and wheels. You don’t really need anything more than that because it’s not about the vehicle. The vehicle is just a blank platform to build on. In the case of the Lucy Pet float, the chassis started out under a commercial truck hauling steel before it was decommissioned and sold to Fiesta Parade Floats. It made its parade debut in 2012, and it’s powered by a Ford 320-horsepower, 460-lb-ft 6.8-liter V-10 out of an F-650/F-750 commercial truck. Power flows through a Ford TorqShift HD 6R140 six-speed automatic from the same F-650/F-750 (only first and reverse are enabled) and a heavy-duty transfer case locked in low gear and then onto one powered rear axle. (The second rear axle is unpowered.) Why not the stouter Power Stroke diesel? Rose Parade regulations don’t allow diesels.
The Lucy Pet float is no ordinary float, either. Unlike most, it’s a tractor-trailer design rather than a single frame, and whereas the average float stretches 55 feet, this one is 125 feet long. Two days before the parade, it’ll be certified as the World’s Longest Parade Float by the Guinness World Records. But just one record isn’t enough for builder and Fiesta Parade Floats president Tim Estes. He’s also gunning for World’s Heaviest Parade Float at roughly 136,000 pounds. The California Highway Patrol will provide portable truck scales for the official weigh-in on December 30.
Getting the float that heavy took work. When it was originally built over six months in 2011 and 2012, the float featured a plywood and fiberglass wave pool for surfing dogs. Estes wasn’t happy with the myriad tiny leaks from the fiberglass, so he decided steel was the way to go this year. Between that and the roughly 5,800 gallons of water that fill it, the upgraded float will have no trouble setting a record. Carrying the weight are 26 wheels wrapped in solid rubber, which helps to prevent flats.
Naturally, the surfing dogs will be back. This time around, there will be eight of them selected from a national competition. To make sure the dogs would be comfortable surfing on the float, the rear section with the wave pool and generator was trucked around the country to various local competitions. When the dogs reach the end of the pool, they’ll shuttle back in car-shaped cages that run along a track next to the pool.
With eight dogs, dozens of people, thousands of gallons of water, thousands of flowers, and 68 tons of parade float behind it, driving the float is a daunting job. Then they tell you the driver can’t actually see where he’s going. The driver’s seat and controls are mounted to the left side of the truck frame, just behind the transmission, less than a foot off the ground. The entire frame is surrounded by a cloth-covered frame, which on parade day will be completely covered with flowers and seeds. With zero outward visibility, the driver relies on a red line painted on the street and a spotter on the lifeguard tower directly above giving directions over a headset.
Given all that, a driving test was required before the Fiesta and Lucy people would let me get behind the wheel. And not just any driving test—a blindfolded driving test. It seemed simple enough: drive down a lane of cones, and make a 90-degree right turn without hitting anything. Spotting for me from the passenger seat of the Ford Transit was Joey Herrick, founder and president of Lucy Pet and the Lucy Pet Foundation. The point of the test isn’t to replicate a scene from Talladega Nights but rather to test whether I can take direction and make smooth, safe throttle, brake, and steering inputs.
I’ll assume you’ve never driven blindfolded, as it’s a very bad idea in most circumstances, so I’ll describe it for you. At first, it feels like getting in your car in the middle of the night but darker. You know from memory where all the controls are and how to get buckled in, start the engine, and switch the parking brake off. From there, it becomes very disconcerting. I knew going in I was in the middle of a big parking lot and would have to screw up pretty badly to hit something other than cones, but it’s still strange to feel the vehicle moving under you and not be able to see where it’s going. Naturally, you’re cautious and light on the throttle. The official parade speed is 3 mph. Going so slow, it can be hard to feel if the vehicle is even moving. At least twice, Herrick had to tell me to keep going because I’d unknowingly come to a stop. At least once, he also had to tell me to slow down.
Turning, though, is the real kicker. Even at low speeds, you can feel inertia pulling you to the side as the vehicle turns. It was my first time driving with Herrick, so there was some miscommunication about how much he actually wanted me to turn the wheel. We had to stop, back up, turn harder, and try again to avoid running over the cones. Once we were actually turning, I was convinced Herrick was intentionally letting me screw up to teach me a lesson. It felt as though we were turning forever, to the point I was sure I’d made a U-turn even though I hadn’t felt us run over any cones. Then Herrick told me to stop and take off the blindfold. I’d executed a perfect 90-degree right turn and was at the end of the course. I hadn’t hit anything; it was time for the real thing.
The float is actually less intimidating. Dropping into the two slabs of plywood that constitute the seat, I could see the road below, all my controls, and all of the inner workings of the float. They kept the access hatch open to keep an eye on me, which meant I also had a view out to the side. But it was of little help. Over the staticky headset, the spotter told me to roll out, so I eased into the throttle. Locked in a crawler gear, the massive float wafted forward like a Rolls-Royce. The engine barely revved up. The steering had some play in it, and the rack was slow, so it was easy to make small, smooth corrections to keep in the middle of the road.
Just as I was getting comfortable staring at the front wheel, my spotter told me to slow down. The float has a maximum speed of maybe 5 mph with a downhill slope and a tailwind, and apparently I was approaching it. I gently applied the brake with my left foot with the intention to execute a perfect limousine stop. Instead, I learned that the brakes are extremely grabby, and the float jerked to a stop. Here I’d thought the professional float driver who’d brought it out was just in a hurry, but it turns out it takes a lot of practice to stop a float smoothly. After all, these brakes are designed to stop huge trucks moving at freeway speeds, so they’re aggressive at walking speed. It’s also why certain float riders have to be strapped in.
After a bit more trial and error—and being yelled at to slow down again—I still didn’t have the brakes figured out. It didn’t matter. I had driven all of 60 or so feet, and my turn was up. The Fiesta and Lucy people liked me, but they only trust a rookie so far with their record-setting float, and it doesn’t include turns (which the float just barely makes when swung wide enough). With the hatch open, I had a pretty good idea of how far I’d gone, but it leaves me nervous at the idea of driving a full parade route with thousands of participants and many times more spectators able to see nothing but a line on the pavement. Driver and spotter must have an excellent understanding and complete trust. Come parade day, there can’t be any uncertainty about how much steering the spotter wants.
After the dry run is complete, the pool is drained for painting, and the float heads back to the barn to start the decorating process. Seeds, beans, and rice will go on first because they keep longer. Flowers will be added closer to the parade date. Parade rules require every exterior surface to be covered in some kind of plant product, including areas the spectators will never see, which will take most of the two weeks before New Year’s Day.
The next time you see the 2017 “Lucy Pet’s Gnarly Crankin’ K-9 Wave Maker” float will be at the 2017 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, on Monday, January 2, at 8 a.m. PST. The parade has a never-on-Sunday rule dating back to 1893 when it was feared the floats would frighten horses tied up outside churches on Sunday morning. Check your local channel listings.
Lucy Pet Products is the fundraising division of the Lucy Pet Foundation. The Foundation, a registered nonprofit, works to reduce pet overpopulation and euthanasia by providing mobile spay/neuter clinics nationwide. Proceeds from Lucy Pet Products exclusively fund the foundation.
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