(From NoLandGrab) A competitive eating hall of fame is one of three suggestions offered by the Atlantic Yards Report to the Imagine Coney initiative. The hall of fame would include a restaurant that would offer an eating challenge.

An auction will be held tonight at Rebel NYC to benefit Coney Island USA. George Shea will be honored for his efforts with Nathan’s hot dog eating contest and a judgeship for the 2009 Nathan’s finals is one of the items that will be auctioned off.

• A black & white gallery from this year’s Nathan’s finals
• Barlo’s Pizza in Indianapolis will award at least $300 to someone who finishes a 29 inch pizza in under 2 hours
• Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane wins Colorado Springs musubi contest
• A comparison of Krystal with White Castle. TN and KY have both restaurants.
• IHOP to offer all-you-can-eat pancakes for remainder of October (from Skinnyboy)
• Video from b.good’s Garlicky Greens contest
• Picture of Badlands Booker at Nashville Krystal qualifier
• Volunteers wanted to handle publicity, sponsorships, food safety
  and legal aspects of a Chicago hot dog eating contest
• Brenda Lashley, winner of a sauerkraut eating contest, makes “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” book for naming her son after her favorite brand of sauerkraut.

The Kinetic Carnival blog reports that a benefit auction will be held for the Coney Island USA cultural arts organization on November 3. A Nathan’s judgeship will be one of the items up for auction. George Shea will be a special guest and tickets will be $40. The dress code is “sideshow chic”. Tickets can be purchased online.

The Krystal Square Off twitter has the top 3 of this afternoon’s qualifier in Memphis:

1. Rich LeFevre 52 burgers
2. Juris Shibayama 51
3. Erik Denmark 50

If these are the official results the 3 wild cards will be:
1. Sonya Thomas 55
2. Juris Shibayama 51
3. Badlands Booker 51

If a fourth wild card is added Crazy Legs Conti or Erik Denmark would claim the slot with 50 burgers depending on whether Conti broke Denmark’s previous result of 43.

The Vancouver Sun has a video of Ken “The Demolisher” Wong winning the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest held at a Vancouver Canadians baseball game last night. Wong ate 8.5 HDB to win and the contest had a non standard duration of 6 minutes. Ken Wong has emailed a report on the contest which can be read after the jump:

update Ken Wong has emailed some pictures from the contest:

Read the rest of this entry »

Capital News 9 reports that “Buffalo” Jim Reeves won the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest held at the Saratoga Race Course today. While this year’s upstate New York contest is not a qualifier for the July 4 finals, it still awarded a year’s worth of hot dogs. The duration remained 12 minutes long despite truncation of other Nathan’s contests this year to 10 minutes. Video from the contest is available which shows that Crazy Legs Conti also participated.

update blip.tv also has a video Totals are not mentioned on either of the two videos.

update #2 The contest page on IFOCE.com has been updated to report that Buffalo Jim ate 23.5 HDB and Crazy Legs Conti consumed one less. The contest was listed as 10 minutes.

update #3 The Saratogian has a contest report.

• 120 ounce steak at Brand Steakhouse in Las Vegas, free if eaten by one person, $267 otherwise
• San Francisco spam musubi eating contest September 6
• CNBC on the effects of inflation on Michael Phelps’ diet
• Saratoga Nathan’s contest Monday to be 12 minutes?
• Gallery of wing eating contest before Bills - Steelers game in Toronto
• Slots still available for Vancouver, BC Nathan’s non-qualifier Monday. The contest will be 6 minutes.
• 1993 article about Czech dumpling contest.
• Nanticoke, PA pierogi eating contest Sunday.

• Nathan’s hot dog eating contest August 16 in Stuarts Draft, VA. Prize is $100 gas card.
• Nathan’s finals gallery by FooBarDude
• Video of butter eating contest (will Don Lerman sue for intellectual property violation?)
• Website for Brooklyn pizza contest at http://annualbrooklynpizzaeatingcontest.com/
• Gal Sone goes to Tokyo Disneyland. (Her favorite rides are Space Mountain and Splash Mountain)

Registration for the Nathan’s hot dog contest that will be held at the Saratoga horse racing track on August 18 is now open on IFOCE.com, which states that the contest will not be a qualifier for the 2009 finals, but the winner will receive a year’s supply of hot dogs.

In other IFOCE contest news, registration for the Los Angeles Nisei Week gyoza eating contest will open in about an hour. Sonya Thomas says she will not enter due to high travel costs (from comment)

The events calendar for the New York Racing Association reports that a Nathan’s hot dog eating contest will take place at the Saratoga Race Course on August 18. The first prize will be a year’s supply of Nathan’s hot dogs. It is not stated if the contest will be a qualifier for the 2009 finals. Registration will take place at the race course before the contest.

• Cookie Jarvis’ gallery of the Nathan’s weigh-in
• Furious Pete’s report for bodybuilding.com on the Dover BBQ contest
• Sarah Schreitmueller wins (Iowa) Nordic Fest lutefisk eating contest
• Steve Oddo wins Keyport, NJ IHOP pancake eating contest
• Gallery of Seattle donut eating contest / concert

• Article about food waste at the MLE Singapore contest
• Bryan Miller wins Cape Coral, FL wing eating contest
• Pictures from the Myrtle Beach qualifier
• Astoria, NY burger contest Sunday, $100 first prize
• Rhode Island competitive eating training partner sought
• Kobayashi vs. bear video reaches 1 million views

• Nathan’s finals gallery
• Lamb’s rib eating contest in California
• Dani’s Pizza qualifier galleries and results (from MissGluttonsBliss)
• Coney Island taco eating contest video
• Octopus ball eating contest in Japan

• NY Time City Room blog has a picture of Pat Bertoletti, Sonya Thomas and Bob Shoudt superimposed with faces from the Spook-A-Rama ride
• Epicurious’ list of food-based video games
• Topeka jalapeno contest report
• Nathan’s gallery by MissCharo
• George Hadary wins Dallas La Contena jalapeno eating contest
• Yelp reviews of Nathan’s finals

The new poll asks if you think whether the judges should have declared Joey Chestnut or Takeru Kobayashi the winner of the Nathan’s finals and whether the contest should have gone into overtime. If you think that Kobayashi and/or Chestnut should have been disqualified, that option is also available.

• Log of Pat Bertoletti on yesterday’s Steve Dahl show. Bertoletti will be competing against sandwich makers at the Taste of Lincoln Avenue on July 26 or 27.
• Video recorded by Gersh Kuntzman alleging cheating by Kobayashi after regulation time ended at the Nathan’s finals
• Press release about today’s UEPa meeting at Gregory’s Steakhouse
• Short article about Rich LeFevre

Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, attended the Nathan’s finals and has a short blog entry about that event with a picture of post-contest hot dog debris.

Kobayashi says he dined with an unnamed author who is probably Dubner before the Nathan’s finals and has a blog entry about meeting him .

Dubner says that competitive eating might be a topic of SuperFreakonomics. Will the IFOCE have Ryan Nerz write another book to counter that project?

The Nathan’s finals will be rerun tonight on ESPN at 3am eastern. This is the only rerun that currently appears in the online TV schedules.

• Preview of the Chinook Winds rib contest. Rich LeFevre and Erik Denmark are listed as expected entrants.
• Steakbellie on the Camden qualifier
• Megamunch finalizes plans for the UEPa meeting. The 120 ounce steak is free if finished.
• Quotes and podcast of George Shea at the Nathan’s finals.
• According to CNN, Heinz’ sales are up 16.5% and profits are up 30.9% over the past two years. Nelson Peltz got Heinz to co-sponsor Nathan’s.
• 11 “Pushing Daisies” themed pie eating contests at the Orange County Fair from July 11 to August 2

Valerie Bromann, who previously photographed the Krystal Square Off finals, attended last week’s Nathan’s finals and posted a blog entry and gallery with over 100 pictures.

• Erik Denmark has a report from Coney Island
• Ian Hickman interview for delawareonline.com
• MissBusyLady believes Joey Chestnut should have won Nathan’s in regulation time
• HungrySisters on the Nathan’s finals
• List of Delaware eating challenges
• Mindy Kaling predicts she will eat “thousands of beets” at The Office Games
• NY Daily News reports on Peggy O’Neill’s July burger contest and reports the winner as “Pete Zerwinski”
• Greenwood, SC hot dog contest Saturday, $100 first prize
• Top 16 things overheard at the Nathan’s finals
• Will Millender added to non-IFOCE rankings
• Darren Rovell says he will drink 6 bottles of ketchup in 10 minutes if the Steelers leave Pittsburgh

• Kevin Ross article on pe.com
• Pete Davekos article in the Boston Herald
• Podcast of the Lefevres’ appearance on Nevada Public Radio
• column about Brooklyn Stinky Cheese contest
• Wall Street Fighter’s blog entry about attending the Nathan’s finals
• Mindy Kaling to compete in the Office Games beet eating contest
• Rich Shea clips from Awful Announcing
• Qualifier schedule on nathansfamous.com still lists June 24 Tokyo qualifier
• Michelle Lesch to go for 11th oyster eating contest at the Knysna Oyster Festival in South Africa

Kobayashi has written two blog entries containing English about the recent Nathan’s finals. One thanks fans for their support, the other contains Kobayashi’s thoughts on the overtime format (not automatically translated):

In this case, I think the correct approach is to look at the situation as this: we decided the winner through a different event (rather than that we decided the winner in an extension of the 10-minute battle).

So for me, deciding the champion in a five hot dog challenge is no different to deciding the champion by playing “rock, scissors, paper”.

Kobayashi also has a blog entry comparing winning qualifier totals with the amounts eaten in the finals.

Ken Hoffman of the Houston Chronicle has a column about serving as a judge at the Nathan’s finals, where he was assigned to keep track of Juris Shibayama’s total. Hoffman did not focus 100% on counting the amount of hot dogs eaten by “Dr. Big Time”:

Even though I was counting Shibayama’s hot dogs, I was videotaping Chestnut and Kobayashi’s furious assault on processed meat and enriched white bread. I looked like a total tourist with my badge and camera dangling from my neck.

While the contest was going on, my cell phone rang. It was my buddy Sean Pendergast. “I’m watching on TV — which judge are you?”

The column reports that the Major League Eating Wii game will be released next week, which would give it a Bastille Day release date and set up the possibility of a crepe eating contest to promote its launch.

George Shea describes how the overtime format was decided on:

“In most matches, we use a one-minute overtime to decide ties,” Shea said. “However, the speed with which Kobayashi and Chestnut eat would have made it very difficult to judge who had eaten more. I felt it would be more decisive to have a five-hot-dog eat-off.”