Don't Back Down

In 1916, two Polish immigrants started Nathan's Famous, and over 100 years later, the idea is still going strong. Legend has it that on July 4, 1916, four immigrants held a hot-dog eating contest outside the original stand on Coney Island to see who who was the most patriotic. There is no word on why eating the most dogs in the shortest amount of time makes you the most patriotic, but 90-odd years later, the contest is still going strong.

Among the competitive eaters, there is no shortage of events. As recently as one week ago, someone consumed almost 60 hot dogs and buns (HDBs for short) in just 12 minutes (update: this record itself fell in the official event on July 4, 2007 - the record now stands at a whopping 66 HDBs!). The record for spam is 6 pounds in 12 minutes. Butter? 7 quarter-pound sticks in 5 minutes. French fries? 4.46 pounds in 6 minutes. You get the idea. But Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest may well be the oldest event there is, so when a regional qualifying event came to Charlotte, we had to check it out.

The only real downside was that it was hot. Now it wasn't just normal hot - it was scorching hot. And to make matters worse, the event was held in the parking lot at Concord Mills. The first problem? It was outside. The second problem? Standing on asphalt, in the middle of the day, while the sun beats down, isn't fun. But hey - at least there was music.

I don't think I had ever actually heard of Loosh before - and judging by the crowd, they hadn't either - but they weren't bad. Mostly cover songs of 80s bands, but there were a couple of originals. I'd have to say that it would have been much more enjoyable if the event was cooler, or if there were drinks of any kind, or the set was shorter (this isn't a reflection on the band - just that it was so freaking hot outside).

I can't really fault the band, however. They did a decent job, and they ended up having to play their introduction piece for longer than expected when the paramedics didn't show up on time. I bet you thought that those competitive eaters were just a bunch of overweight guys who didn't care about their health, right? You'd be wrong. They actually wait for there to be emergency health professionals, in case someone chokes on a dog or something. So we waited, and we waited.

As we waited, there was some additional entertainment. There was a giant hot dog, for instance. He didn't really do much other than wander around and take pictures with kids. And people like myself who were just trying to do something - anything - to make the time go by faster.

There were also a couple of giveaways, where they would throw out shirts, so those of us who didn't want to gobble down hot dogs could pretend like we did by wearing our shirt out in public. They gave out frisbees and tickets to local sporting teams too. Not bad for a free event!

After an undercard, that had kids get up on stage for a "neat eating" event, where they had to try to eat a single dog as neatly as possible - and where they were rushed off the stage because they were eating so incredibly slowly - we finally came to the main event. Rick Shea, the Master of Ceremonies, announces the Four Horsemen of the Esophagus (he's full of puns), and slowly the competitors take the stage.

As each of the competitors for the main event take the stage to their theme song, the roadies (hey, I don't know what to call them) starts loading up the plate, and that's when the magnitude of the event starts to hit you. Actually, the first thing that hits you is that out of perhaps 15 competitors, only two of them are serious. The second thing that hits you is that about ten of them share the same theme song from Eminem, though Shea says they all were able to choose their own. Rocky this isn't.

Eventually, we have all the competitors lined up on-stage, and at that point, the size of what's happening takes shape. The plates are loaded - the bottom row shows three dogs across, with two dogs lined up perpendicularly to those. Five dogs per plate, per competitor, with another plate of five behind it. If they go through those ten, they will get another plate of five. But it is readily apparent that only a couple of challengers are assigned their own watchdog - and they are in the center of the podium - while the outer tables have a single person for the entire table.

One of the surprise entrants is local columnist Tom Sorensen from the Charlotte Observer. According to MC Shea, local columnists are often invited, but rarely actually participate. So it's good to see Tom up there. As you may not be able to tell from the picture, he makes the wise choice and steps from the center of the stage to a side table - he's not going to be totally serious about his participation.

What he does do is enjoy his time in the spotlight, and takes in a perfectly respectable four hot dogs during the 12 minutes contest. Not a bad number at all, considering the pressure that he was under on stage. Unfortunately, four HDBs was not quite enough to qualify Tom for, well, much of anything. At least he had a good time. Way to go Tom!

Meanwhile, in the center of the stage, the action was fast and furious. Super Paul Barlow, formerly of Charlotte, was on the far left of the center table, and managed an enviable 10 dogs - unfortunately that wasn't enough to get him anywhere near the top of the heap. No, the top two finishers were Hall Hunt and Juliet Lee.

Their spotters would watch carefully as the HDBs went down one after the other. Hunt uses what is referred to as the Double Japanese technique, eating two wieners at a time, and then dipping two buns into water and consuming them separately. Lee keeps pace with him, and the spotters furiously watch their eaters and turn over card after card, and the eaters cram one fist after another into their mouths - first one takes the lead, then the other.

When it is all over, a mere three-quarters of an HDB separates the two. Each eater is allowed to finish what is in their mouth - provided it doesn't come back up - but they cannot put more in. And in the end, after carefully examining what is left on the plates, Hall Hunt has taken the win. For the spectators, we win too - we get to eat the leftover HDBs that didn't make it to the competitor's plates.

What is it about competitive eating that is just so darned appealing?

View the 2007 Nathan's Contest Gallery (9 Images) »