Round 4

Goal:

Eat as many wings as you can in 30 minutes

Reward:

free meal and $1000 and Carribean Cruise



Well team, it was a tough weekend for chickens. A total of 7,500 wings were eaten or attempted to be eaten (one guy threw up, and no one had the courage to count his wings) by the top 48 eaters in the country.

Although I felt well prepared, in the end, I am so sorry to say, I couldn't go stomach-to-stomach for 30 minutes at the same table with the best of the best. I'm not sure where to begin, so I'll start this story where I left you, on Friday, where the real preparation began.
Friday Feb 9th
I planned on stuffing myself on Friday and then starve myself until Sunday. I ate a strong lunch (4 tacos, and a chicken burrito), and I managed to get a great deal of food in me for dinner:

1 lb of ravioli
1.75 lbs of chicken. I went to the deli and ordered the chicken
dinner special with a side of chicken salad. I asked if they could
weight the food for me.
.75 lbs of miscellaneous food. I had a piece of lasagna, a couple
glasses of milk, and finished the night with a bowl of oat bran.

I figured I had about 3.5 pounds of food in me. However this was over 2 hours and was not consumed under game conditions. Nonetheless, I was in pain. But as I fell asleep that evening, I found comfort in the truism: "no pain, no gain."

Saturday Feb 10th
I started Saturday with another bowl of oat bran. We left for Cincinnati in the morning. I had a few glasses of metamucil during the day, and I ate a small dinner. I thought things were flowing nicely. We spent a relaxing evening at an art museum. I happened to stop by a wonderful painting that depicted David holding the slain head of Goliath. I quietly smiled as I imagined me holding the 48 stomachs of my competitors.

Sunday, Feb 11th, Game Day
Game day came quickly and without a pleasant introduction. The competition awoke me with their boisterous morning shouts as I could hear them shower in the room next to me. I had a poor night of sleep and had a sore stomach. All those chickens I thought. The pressure was beginning to get to me. I managed to drink a 1/2 cup of coffee in hope that it would get my system up to speed.

The 1996 Grand Cluck Off was at the Force Fair Mall in Cincinnati. I got to the mall to register and got my first glimpse of the competition. They were big. Big is too small when using mere adjectives to describe the girth of these powerful massive food mills. I was up against the biggest, badest, boldest bellies this country has to offer. I have never seen such an assemblage of abdomen protrusion. I was in a room full of men who had stomachs that outweighed me. It would have been wise to bring a dozen donuts to temp their tremendous tummies. Another rookie mistake I thought. The air was a buzz with competitors spouting off their qualifying poundage: "I ate 4.08 lbs," said one man. "Ain't nothin', I ate 4.5 lbs!" came the retort. I'm not afraid to admit that I was scared.

As we lined up to make our grand entrance, people were discussing last year's event.

"See that guy on the bench over there?" said the stocky man from Ohio with a belly that sagged down to his knees. He was a pleasant man in his 40s whose battle scared stomach had been through one too many eat offs.

"You don't have to worry about him. He threw up last year, and that caused the guy next to him to threw up too."

He then finished his only thought with a word of advice:

"Don't throw up kid and don't sit next to that guy." He said this as he pointed to a thin tired looking fellow sitting on a bench.

Despite the portly man's counsel, my stomach was beginning to get tense.

All the competitors linded up, the band started to play, and we were escorted to the communal dinner table. We marched around the dinning area before we were seated. I was in the first row. Contestant number 10. I was undecided if this was a good position to be in. I wasn't sure if I could protest the seating arrangement. I was stuck between two large men whose dining manners could at best be described as aberrant.

We each were given a massive mound of wings: 150 of them! I contemplated the wings and the obstacle ahead of me. I was venturing in a land where my stomach had never traveled. Would this be my last supper? I imagined the headlines the next day, "Man stomach explodes, causes huge traffic delays."

Once introductions were over, we had to wait for contestant number 30 to come back from the bathroom. My blood was getting hot and my chicken was getting cold. The jubilant atmosphere turned somber and tense quickly. Contestants quietly sipped their ice water.

Finally, the whistle blew, and the feast was on its way. The crowd was screaming and cameras were flashing. It's one thing to eat in the comfort of you're own dining room; and another to eat in front of a thousand screaming fans. It's a whole another dinner at this level. I've seen men who qualified by eating four pounds, unable to eat a pound when the food is on the line.

As I ate, I tried to keep my spirits up and the chicken down. I heard crys of pain and shouts for more chicken. I kept looking to the audience for support from my fellow team members. But all I could hear was the father of last year's winner yell: "You da man, You da man". But those rational words of inspiration weren't directed to me, but to the kid from Knoxville, Tennessee who ate 3.54 pounds of wings to take first place last year. I was trying to stay wing-to-wing with the defending champion.

The local favorite was a guy named Moe, who was able to stick an entire chicken wing in his mouth and pull the bone out completely clean. It was amazing. Despite Moe's dexterous technique, he started too fast (like all rookies) and couldn't keep the pace with the long distance eaters.

I tried to keep my concentration on the wings on my own plate. The minutes passed by like a chicken wing thrown to the lions. The familiar taste of buffalo wings conjured up warm images of the past. Time moved quickly and the wings, slowly. Before I could swallow, time was up. It was over. The repast had past. I knew something was wrong because I was still hungry.

After the whistle blew and the dinning area cleared, each of the contestants bones and scraps where closely measured. I waited. The announcements painfully came:

3rd Place: 3.75 pounds, to last years winner.
2nd Place: 4.60 pounds, to a big rookie with a veteran stomach.
1st Place: 5.10 pounds, to a man I didn't notice before. He proudly
showed off his belly to the crowd and collected his winnings.

Five pounds! That is a lot of chicken. How do you compete against that? I think that must be a world record. Even a dejected Moe was shocked by the results.

When the wings were cleared, I finished in a disappointing 35th place. In 30 minutes, I ate 130 wings, weighing in at 2 lbs. Needless to say, this is off the 70/15 min pace that got me into the finals. However, 14 people did finish behind me, and I do feel honored just to sit at the same table as some of these eaters.

I am not sure how to handle the disappointment. This is something I have been training all my life for. Then one day you wake up and realize it's over, your best dinners are behind you. It's hard to deal with.

As I reflect back, I realize my preparation was peppered with mistakes:


I hate to admit this, but I did not eat my best. I made some rookie eating mistakes:


I want everyone to remember that this is a team loss, so I don't want anyone to take more blame than anyone else. I am proud of you all. As I said before, if I win, I win alone; if I lose, we lose as a team.

Sour Stomach:

I think we need to meet with the rules committee to get a new system for determining the winner. Of the 48 people, I was in the bottom 2 for size. I think if they used a percentage of weight scale system, we might have a more competitive eat off. In fairness to the winner, he still would have won. I estimated that he weighed 260 lbs.

Thank you

The journey was fun people. We tasted victory, and we were only a few pounds away from capturing the grand prize. The following people forever have my thanks:

cinda
...for cheering me on and for unconditional support during all the events

mike, george, and john
...for their unconventional and bold ideas

dave and rhonda
...for eating suggestions and constant emotional support

jaejin
...for his enthusiasm for my eating

mark and carolyn
...for scouting out the competition during the finals

todd
...my personal trainer during the week, who tried to get my metabolism increased

neal
...for teaching me to eat fast as a child

and my mother
...for adequately preparing edible food during my childhood

1996 total wing count:
---------------------
round 1: 50 + 12 gift
round 2: 70 + 24 gift
round 3: 36 + 48 gift
round 4: 130
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286 + 84 ==> 370 free wings !!



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