Rich LeFevre will not be the only member of a competitive eating couple appearing in Wing Bowl 14. Melissa beat her husband to obtain a berth in the February 3 contest. Beating her stunt’s time limit (which is not clear on the video) required a very serious amount of “chipmunking.”

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Lisa, a South Jersey resident who goes to graduate school in Canada, was extremely impressed by Joey Chestnut’s Wing Bowl qualifying stunt of drinking a gallon of milk in under a minute. Lisa’s father has tickets to the Wing Bowl.

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While the San Francisco Bay area will not produce a Super Bowl winner in 2006 (or apparently many years into the future), the odds that of that region producing a champion in Wing Bowl 14 greatly increased when San Jose State student Joey “Jaws” Chestnut qualified by drinking a gallon of milk in 41 seconds Monday morning (philly.com video) . (The other favorite for the Wing Bowl, Rich LeFevre, lived in suburban San Francisco before retiring to Las Vegas several years ago). Chestnut has made five trips to the eastern time zone since the start of November to pursue his competitive eating career. It will be interesting to see if Wing Bowl 15 has geographic restrictions in addition to prohibiting previous competitors to ensure that a local wins the contest.

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WIP announced that the Wing Bowl ticket revenues will be used to help construct a basketball court for the Sonny Hill Community Involvement Basketball League. The location of the court has not been determined.

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The Daily Pennysylvanian has a contest write up of the first “Wing 5” collegiate qualifer which was won by Tim “Dr. Slob” Cusice of West Chester College with 61 chicken wings in 10 minutes.

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After only 2 of the first 6 or 7 hopeful competitors successfully completed their qualifying stunts (and one of those two was Rich LeFevre) it appears that the degree of difficulty of the qualifying stunts has been loosened. A recent successful stunt involved eating a pound of cookie dough in four minutes and another required eating two meatball subs in five minutes.

Beautiful Brian Seiken has an article about the degree of difficulty for Wing Bowl 14 qualifying stunts.

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Philly.com’s Wing Bowl page mentions that Rich “The Locust” LeFevre qualified for the Wing Bowl this morning by eating 12 cans of Vienna sausage in 5 minutes at the Borgata casino in Atlantic City. A video of Rich’s qualification is available on that page. I am not sure that the Wing Bowl organizers expected a skinny ex-accountant from Las Vegas to be the favorite (assuming Joey Chestnut does not attempt to qualify) when they barred previous competitors from entering.

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Qualifying for Wing Bowl 14 has begun with T Bone Tony’s attempt to eat 3 pounds of sirloin in 9 minutes 30 seconds. Philly.com’s Wing Bowl Page will have information and videos of all the qualifying attempts. Philadelphia area college students can qualify without performing a stunt by winning one of several contests to be held near Philadelphia area colleges. (Could this be Kate Stelnick’s opportunity to return to competitive eating?)

The Wing Bowl Rules explicitly ban AICE members. It is difficult to discern what the Wing Bowl gains from its association with IFOCE, as its most popular members are prevented from competing by the ban on previous entrants and all the publicity and qualifying for the event is handled by WIP.

Chip Simpson is probably the favorite if he decides to qualify. Brian Subich and Pat Philbin are other IFOCE members to watch. (This assumes that no IFOCE members from outside the northeast enter.)

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Several sellers have put Wing Bowl tickets up for sale on ebay. They are asking, and generally getting a good deal more than the $5 face value.

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WIP 610 has announced that the Wing Bowl has sold out in a little more than 24 hours despite the lack of previous competitors.

Update 10/26 11:26 pm philly.com has more information about Wing Bowl ticket sales (go to the bottom of the page). 18,000 tickets were sold, which is probably about the capacity for basketball or hockey.

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In this forum thread for the Opie and Anthony show, Pat (from Moonachie, NJ) Philbin is encouraged by his fans to participate in the Wing Bowl. One fan is apparently not upset about the lack of previous competitors in Wing Bowl 14, for he plans to camp out for tickets starting 24 hours before they go on sale.

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Speedeat.com mentions that the next Wing Bowl will be closed to all previous competitors and have a $5 admission charge. 610 WIP’s Wing Bowl page makes this information official. Tickets will go on sale starting Sunday. The starting time will remain 6am the Friday before the Super Bowl. All admission fees are allocated to charity, but if the net result of the restrictions is a victory for Joey Chestnut or Rich LeFevre, they might want to use some of those funds for additional security.

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