What started as a tiny race of rubber ducks on the Exeter River during Fall Fest has become a race of people-sized ducks down Swasey Parkway just outside of the Powder Keg Beer and Chili Festival!

In our first few years, a few brave volunteers rowed on the water to shepherd a few hundred rubber ducks through a pool noodle race track after falling dramatically off the back of the Exeter Fire Department ladder truck. As our duck sales grew, our flock of tiny rubber ducks did as well. Our fearless firefighter volunteers struggled to carry bags of these racers up the ladder truck as we sold more and more ducks.

Finally, the tide literally turned against us and the ducks escaped their racetrack in 2019 and swam upriver rather than to the finish line. We finally had to admit that our duck race needed to change…and then the COVID-19 pandemic started.

In 2020, we pivoted out of the water race to a raffle model.

We were delighted and astonished at the community support and succeeded in selling over two thousand ducks! The rubber ducks were still present as spectators but the winner was decided by pulling tickets out of our tumbler.

In 2021 we returned to an in-person event but decided to keep the raffle and introduce our 3 largest ducks to the flock.

These 3 volunteers raced down Swasey Parkway to the tumbler to pull out the tickets and find our winners.

For 2022 we once again had our 3 large ducks race down Swasey Parkway to determine our winners from the 3000 tickets in the tumbler.

While you don’t have to be present to win, we encourage you to join us and watch the fun!