Wonder Wienie!

 

Travis, Andy, Annie, and I were at a basketball game a few years ago, watching youngest son, Patrick play basketball.  After the game was over, we started out to go home. As usual, our family was among the last to leave the gym.

The high schoolers who had operated the concession stand were cleaning up but were faced with a problem.  They had over-estimated and cooked too many hot dogs during the last quarter of the game.  The youngsters were standing around eating wieners but there was no way they could eat them all, so one of the teachers who was supervising issued an interesting challenge.

He shouted to the dwindling crowd, “Who thinks they can eat the most hotdogs?  They’re free!”

Travis and Andy decided they were up for a challenge and set-to.  Within a couple minutes they had cleaned up the leftover ‘dogs.  At last count they had eaten about eight wieners each.  I don’t remember which of them was the winner.

That’s a lot of hot dogs, you say?  Well, compared to Joey Chestnut, they are rank amateurs!

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I’m sure everyone reading this has eaten their share of tube steak.  While I’m not a huge fan of them, give me a grilled ‘dog made of quality meat and I can put away a couple, or three…or four.  Add a little mustard and relish and I’ll engulf it.  Smother them in chili and it’s a meal I’ll be proud to wrap myself around.

But 34-year-old Chestnut wasn’t worried about taste.  As long as it was edible, he was a go.

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Chestnut is a competitive eater.  He recently entered the 2018 Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.  In the challenge competitors were faced with plates, each holding ten hotdogs and buns.  When the timer started, they would have ten minutes to eat as many wieners as they could, and they must swallow them dog, bun, and all.

It would be a tough contest with Chestnut facing the 2015 champion, Matt Stonie.

It was hot as a firecracker this past July 4 but when the start was called, Chestnut started stuffing them down.  After 2 ½ minutes, he’d finished 18 wieners.

Taking a note from the weather you might say, he set a sweltering pace.

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The young man had experience on his side.  He shocked the world in 2007 when he broke the world record, gobbling down 66 hot dogs, buns and all, toppling then world record holder Takeru Kobayashi of Japan.  After that impressive win, Chestnut had put on one dominant performance after another, winning 11 of his next 12 competitions.  In 2015 he lost to, yes, Matt Stonie.

So he was in this contest for a taste of revenge.  Well, that and hotdogs.

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Halfway through the contest, he had opened up a double-digit lead.  Nobody could keep up with his pace of about seven hot dogs and buns per minute.  He knew he had the contest in the bag, but he kept stuffing them down.

When the finish was called and the wieners were counted, Chestnut was announced as the top dog of hot dogs by a margin of…one.

Joey couldn’t believe it.  He knew he’d won by more than that.

Officials double-checked and realized they had not counted one whole plate of ten weanies.  Chestnut had won by, not one, but 11 hotdogs, for a total of 74 wieners, and a new world record!

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Travis and Andy put away a lot of hot dogs at that basketball game so long ago but, compared to Joey Chestnut, they are rank amateurs.  Of course, who could stand up to him?

You could say Chestnut is the wiener winner.

 

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(below)  Here’s a clip from the 2018 contest where Joey Chestnut broke his own world record.  I thought you might like to see the form that won him the title, and would get him kicked out of most family picnics.  The first half is the women’s contest.