Tim “Eater X” Janus and “Humble” Bob Shoudt both have road trip reports about their trip south to Myrtle Beach this weekend.

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According to sport-touring.net, a motorcycle rally to Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, PA will take place this weekend. Currently 75 bikes from 6 states are expected. Could this be the start of the next big gathering of bikers?

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(Thanks Pat Bertoletti) A photo gallery of Saturday’s deep fried asparagus contest taken by the family of one of the local contestants can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/clickfarmer/sets/72057594114394990/

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Surprisingly, the first English article about the new princess of Japanese competitive eating has appeared in a South African publication. iol.co.za reports that Natsuko Sone (aka “The Gal”) won a gourmet Japanese seafood eating contest on the northern island of Hokkaido. The article does not mention any other contest entrant.

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(Thanks Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough) myrtlebeachonline.com has a good writeup of Saturday’s speed eating tournament at Broadway at the Beach won by Bob Shoudt.

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On her website, Sonya Thomas says that she expects Joey Chestnut to eat 40 or more hot dogs at the Nathan’s finals and guarantees that she will do likewise.

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A video clip of “The Gal” can be seen at http://www.ntv.co.jp/news/asx_dai2/060418037_300k.asx as part of a segment in which three females attempt eating challenges. “The Gal” appears at the two and a half minute mark and eats 8 pounds of noodles with chopsticks in 15 minutes. The other challenges are fried rice and shisk-kebabs.

In other Gal news, she did a hamburger eating contest at a slot machine hall and ate 5 Mack hamburgers (short for McDonald’s ?) in a minute, showing speed eating ability for the first time. There was a separate contest for men in which Nobuyuki Shirota (translated as white rice field) won by eating 10 hamburgers in 3 minutes.

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from ifoce.com Stockton, CA Asparagus Festival, deep fried asparagus
1. Joey Chestnut (beat Sonya by 2 oz in overtime)
2. Sonya Thomas
3. Rich LeFevre
4. Pat Bertoletti
5. Erik “the Red” Denmark

another down to the wire match between Sonya and Joey, next week Sonya will have the home region advantage which Joey enjoyed today.

There should be some video clips available tomorrow since Sacramento television is covering the festival.

Taste of Broadway Ultimate Eating Festival, Myrtle Beach, SC
1. Bob Shoudt
2. Loren Yarbrough
3?. Tim “Eater X” Janus

Shoudt and Janus make an unexpected trip south.

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The Daily Show website has an online video of Ryan Nerz’s appearance Tuesday at http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=61778

Ryan Nerz has made available his chapter about Beautiful Brian and the 2004 Ohio watermelon contest that his editor excised from the final manuscript at http://eatthisbook.com/?page_id=38 If you are considering purchasing “Eat This Book,” that chapter provides a good sample of the style and content of the whole book.

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Liz of Urban Honking’s Digest has moved her personal blog from blogspot to http://www.urbanhonking.com/liz/

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Megamunch has a transcript of Ryan Nerz’s appearance on the Daily Show on Tuesday.

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24dash.com has an article about an English performance artist’s attempt to break Sonya Thomas’ record of 8.4 pounds of baked beans in 2 minutes and 47 seconds. He failed to break the record but did manage to eat over 10 pounds of baked beans in 30 minutes. (Don “Moses” Lerman probably assumes that the record should have an asterisk since he did not compete in the Centerville, IN contest in 2004 in which it was set.)

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bloomberg.com reports that Bayer AG, makers of Alka Seltzer, have severed ties with IFOCE and will not sponsor the 2006 US Open of Competitive Eating or any other future eating contests. Bayer’s US marketing executives apparently wanted to continue the sponsorship, but were vetoed by headquarters in Germany.

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The episode (“Stranger Searching”) of the Japanese cartoon Samurai Champloo featuring an eating contest is available online at the Cartoon Network’s adult swim website. The contest is won by a European, so it is like the inverse of Kobayashi at Coney Island. The announcer of the contest employs Shea-style rhetoric. The episode is only available this week, so view it soon if you have any desire to see it.

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The new poll asks what you think the lowest winning total (not counting overtime amounts) for a Nathan’s qualifier in 2006. The highest possible amount for this value is 21.5, since that was the winning amount (in regulation) for Saturday’s qualifier in Florida.

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speedeat.com has been updated after a one month hiatus. “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti downplays (but does not explicitly deny) reports that he has returned to AICE and says he does not intend to compete in an AICE event before the pickle contest on May 24. However, all the AICE contests in which he is listed as an expected entrant on the AICE news page are after that date.

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The video game version (for the PS2 only) of the anime cartoon Samurai Champloo has a mini-game in which the character Fuu competes in a snow cone eating contest (screen capture). This is the first instance of an eating contest in a store-bought video game that I am aware of.

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The foods in the four rounds of Saturday’s speed eating tournament in Myrtle Beach are listed as chicken wings, hot dogs, ice cream and shrimp by event coordinater Michael Castelalano at the end of this article about the Tucson jalapeno popper contest.

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Ryan Nerz’s appearance received good reviews on this forum thread about the Daily Show.

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With the Acme oyster contest cancelled due to Katrina, the most lucrative oyster contest held this spring will apparently be held at the Washington Platform restaurant in Cincinatti on Friday. The winner will receive $1,000 in gift certificates.

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Salon has an interview with Ryan Nerz. (You have to watch a commercial to read the whole article)

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MyrtleBeachOnline has a short preview of Saturday’s speed eating tournament at Broadway at the Beach. Larry McNeil and Loren Yarbrough are listed as expected entrants.

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The Izushi noodle contest was held Saturday. The Nurse (嘉数千恵) (Google can’t translate her name), 3rd place finisher in the “gluttonous queen” contest, won the overall contest with 95 small plates of noodles (no other famous eaters competed). There were 270 participants including children and 11000 plates of noodles were prepared. It is surprising that the minimum age for all contests was not raised to 18 after the controversy after the death of the schoolboy who was imitating a competitive eating stunt in 2002.

The following blog entries and articles about the Izushi provide an overview of a typical Japanese contest that is not a made-for-TV event: Sea Bass blog, Much & Fast (written by the contest runner up), KTV and MBS.

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(From The Tube Sock Destroyer) The current edition of Entertainment Weekly has mini-book reviews of the two competitive eating books which award a grade of B+ to “Eat This Book” and A- to “Horsemen of the Esophagus.”

There is a new book out called “Insatiable” which might be why the title of Jason Fagone’s book was changed.

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“Eat This Book” author and IFOCE MC Ryan Nerz will appear on the Daily Show on Comedy Central at 11 pm eastern tonight. If you miss the episode, it will be replayed at 1 am, 10 am, 2 pm, and 8 pm tomorrow (all times eastern)

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