• Jill Stoler has reports on the bun & cheese and loukoumades eating contests she competed in this weekend.
• If you missed the update below, Sonya Thomas declined her wild card slot which will go to Crazy Legs Conti
• Krystal amateurs Info: Sackful challenge pregame contest for pairs ($500 $100 prize), finals slot registration
• Saint Louis Sushi gallery. The top 3 – last years winner did not repeat, the winner is not named
• Mount Union College hot dog contest
• Phoenix area hot dog contest with qualifiers for high school students
• “Furious” Pete to do eating contests at the Mr. Olympia expo this weekend

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Times Publications has an article about three competitors who signed up for the Tempe Nathan’s qualifier: runner-up David Cohn, third place finisher Gus Beisel and Lindsay Veylupek, who did not compete due to an upset stomach. Cohn defeated World’s Strongest Man” power lifting champion Bill Kazmaier in a burger eating contest in Las Vegas.

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Results from last night’s finals of the Phoenix area Battle of the Bone wing eating contest have been posted. Colin Gardner won the contest by eating 3lbs. and 1.7 ounces of wing meat in 11 minutes. Gardner opted for $7500 cash instead of a 2 year Honda Element lease. The second Battle of the Bone contest is scheduled to begin in February 2009.

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From El Toro comment and IFOCE.com report:

1. Tim Brown 33
2. David Cohn 13.5
3. Gus Beisel 13

update AZCentral.com has a contest report and gallery and video.

Remo DaVinci has a gallery

update #2 East Valley Tribune has a gallery

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• Article about some local competitors in the Tempe qualifier: David Cohn, Adam Muñoz & Lindsay Veylupek
• Hall Hunt’s predictions for today’s qualifiers
• Article about the McKirdy brothers, which says their next contest will be the Chinook Winds rib contest on July 11
• The Brooklyn pizza contest is tomorrow
• Picture of Karen “Seedsucker” Clark on the Washington Post web site
• Pictures from “Furious” Pete’s Italian Challenge
• English article about Gal Sone’s movie debut

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AZReporter has a preview of Saturday’s Nathan’s qualifier at Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe. The field is listed as: Tim Brown, Erik Denmark, Kevin Ross, El Toro, Russ “The Mad Stork” Witzke, Jesus Cabrales, David “Conan” Cohn and Wallace “Bye Bye” Beisel. The article contains the following prediction:

Richard Shea, president of Major League Eating, the group that governs the Nathan’s Famous contest circuit, said: “I believe an unknown eating champion is walking the streets of Hartford, a champion who possesses the pride of Connecticut and the stomach capacity required to set a new world hot dog eating record.”

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Flancer’s Cafe in Gilbert, Arizona is hosting a pizza eating contest April 20 that will award $500 to the winner. The contest entry fee is $30.

Delicious Tamales in San Antonio is holding a tamale eating contest on April 26. The competition will have separate divisions for men and women and each contest will award $250 to the winner. The registration deadline is April 18.

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A website about the “Battle of the Bone” wing eating contest sponsored by a Phoenix sports radio station has been set up at http://battleofthebone2008.com/ There will be 23 weekly qualifiers starting on March 19 held at Native New Yorker restaurant locations. The finals will take place on August 27 and the first prize will be a 2 year lease of a Honda Element. The 23 qualifiers are probably the most any contest has ever had.

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Battle to the Bone, Phoenix, first prize will be a Honda Element, date TBA
Wing Eating Contest at Sheffield Ohio Quaker Steak & Lube March 17, first prize $500, qualifiers Feb 27 and March 5
Andy’s Cheeseburger eating contest in eastern North Carolina, first prize $1000 qualifiers in March, finals in April, dates TBA
Stuffed Hurricane Pizza eating contest for 2 people in Dekalb County, IL, win $400 if eaten in under 24 minutes, offer only available on Tuesday, calling ahead required

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BeautifulBrian reports that El Toro makes a guest appearance on a track on Badlands Booker’s new album, which can be listened to on on El Toro’s myspace page

El Toro is not the only rapping Hispanic competitive eater. “Nurse” Caterina of the Heart Attack Grill is also trying to develop a hip-hop career. Caterina will appear in the upcoming movie “Midnight is the Darkest Hour”

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The online Wall of Fame at HeartAttackGrill.com has been restored. There is also a new picture of record holder Joey Chestnut on the home page.

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The October 27 taquito contest that was originally in the Arizona State Fair list of attractions has been deleted. It does not appear in the list of contests either.

The contest is still present in the Yahoo cache

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The list of attractions at the Arizona State Fair says there will be a taquito eating contest sponsored by Major League Eating on October 27.

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Gersh Kuntzman has written an article for the Brooklyn Papers about Joey’s record breaking performance in Tempe another how air conditioning benefited his performance. There is also a cartoon about the feat.

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(from noaphex) LiveLeak has a one minute video of footage from Saturday’s Nathan’s qualifier at Arizona Mills at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=01d_1180994817

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NY Times blog entry, currently 29 comments (Liz’s youtube video is embedded)
Vallejo Times Herald article
Skinnyboy’s Tempe travelog

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Results from Laura & Beautiful Brian & other commenters
updated from Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane

1) Joey Chestnut 59.5 (breaks previous record of 53.75 HDB)
2) Rich LeFevre 33
3) Tim Brown 25
4) Justin Mih 21
4) Mongo Marquez 21
6) Mad Stork 16
7) Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane 14
7) Jason Erb 14
9) Russell Blackwell 13.75
10) Todd “The Butler” Yeates 7

According to wikipedia, the last American to hold the Nathan’s record was Ed Krachie w/ 22.25 HDB from 1996 to 1997

updated
Todd “the Butler” Yeates’ gallery
AZ Republic article
ESPN.com article from AP
Russell Blackwell blog entry

Joey Chestnut will throw out the first pitch at tomorrow’s game at Shea Stadium according to this USA today article

A contest video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEpvZUqkTss

update #2
The East Valley Tribune has a slideshow with a sound track
The SF Chronicle has an article about Joey’s performance in which he describes his training regimen:

Chestnut, 23, started training six weeks ago with what he calls a “hot dog run” two days per week. Each time, he consumed as many hot dogs as possible in 12 minutes, doing his “weird” dance, flexing and wiggling to push the food down.

Then, he didn’t eat for three days to prepare for the next time.

“You have to mentally have a reason to eat that much and maybe convince my body that it’s OK — it’s not going to hurt it,” he said.

One day each week he ate normally. He also took “tons of vitamins,” amino acids and protein supplements.

Before Saturday’s contest, he didn’t eat Thursday or Friday.

update #3
Live Spaces gallery
Deadspin thread

update #4
Local news TV clip (from Todd “the Butler”)
Joey’s post contest interview
BBC News video (from Brazen) (Video is most popular BBC video for June 3)

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The East Valley Tribune has an article about Mesa, AZ resident Todd “the Butler” Yeates, who will be competing in the Nathan’s qualifier in Tempe Saturday. Todd’s nickname is a reference to the poet William Butler Yeats.

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AZCentral.com has an interview with Joey Chestnut. Joey states he plans to compete in the Tempe, Arizona qualifier on June 2. He will practice for that event in the Los Angeles Dodgers All You Can Eat pavilion this weekend. Joey expresses confidence about his upcoming performances:

Meanwhile, Chestnut believes he’s prepared to shock the eating world.

“I’ve definitely been able to break the record in practice,” he said, adding that for competitive reasons he doesn’t want to say exactly how many hot dogs he has devoured.

“Unless I have a bad day, I’ll break the record.”

And he is convinced that Kobayashi is approaching his gastrointestinal zenith.

“Kobayashi is amazing, but he’s been at it about six years and he’s hovering at about the same amount,” he said. “I don’t know if he can go much higher. If I can get to 55 or 56 I have a chance to beat him.”

updateAZCentral has another article about the qualifier

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HeartAttackGrill.com has been under construction for the past several weeks and none of the links on it are currently active. There is no apparent link location to an online “Wall of Fame”.

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(from heartattackgrill.com) There is an article about the Heart Attack Grill and its owner, “Dr.” John Basso, in entrepreneur.com:

His advice for wannabe entrepreneurs? “I’d tell people to create controversy,” suggests Basso, who refers to himself as the Patch Adams of the restaurant industry. Though he won’t release any financial information, Basso insists that word-of-mouth marketing has given the grill plenty of business. “What I’ve got, in marketing terms, is the purple cow,” he says. “We’ve designed something that people talk about naturally. We’ve never spent one penny, and never will spend one penny on advertisements. We simply have a website, and that’s it.”

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(Thanks Liz) Liz has written a post for urbanhonking/truefan about eating challenges and the IFOCE ban on those smorgasborgs. Liz relays the following offer from Heart Attack Grill owner “Dr.” John Basso:

Basso is offering the $10,000 dollars for the person who can beat Joey’s time, he says, because he knows he’ll see $11,000 in business as a result. His dream right now is to have Kobayashi, the world’s #1 ranked eater, come in and claim that money. He says after Joey did the stunt, he had someone teach him the correct Japanese phrasing in the hopes that the Kobayashi would hear the challenge he broadcast over the television. “And if someone can beat Kobayashi’s time, I’ll give them $12,000,” he said. Though for now, that challenge will have to be put on the shelf.

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heartattackgrill.com says a webcast reality show will begin filming at the restaurant in March.

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There are currently 20 videos about the Heart Attack Grill currently available on youtube, including a segment filmed for Japanese TV and “Dr. Jon” and “Nurse” Caterina’s interview on Fox News.

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Pictures of Joey Chestnut at the Heart Attack Grill when he broke the Quadruple Bypass Burger record, taken by Edward Delgado, are now available on that restaurant’s website.

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