The battle for men's souls

When we went to Coney Island, I thought I was prepared for an epic battle between Joey "Jaws" Chestnut and Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi. I was totally unprepared for the spectacle that ensued.
As some background, Kobayashi burst onto the scene in 2001. Over years the hot dog eating record had risen to 24 1/2 and in 2001 Kobayashi, as a rookie, ate 50 hot dogs (which was such a shock that they didn't have signs counting that high) and remained undefeated until last year when Joey Chestnut defeated Kobayashi and set a world record of 66 hot dogs in the process. There was a bit of a mark on the victory because Kobayashi had a jaw injury. Somehow, showing the triumph of the human spirit, he still managed 63 hot dogs. This year there were no excuses and it was bound to be awesome. We were not disappointed.
We arrived at 10:30 and thought the competition was at 12:00. Initially we thought an hour and a half would be long. Then we found out the coverage on ESPN started at noon but the contest wasn't until 12:40ish. I wasn't sure what to do. Fortunately, the world's greatest emcee was running the event. George Shea, who is also the chairman of the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE), burst onto the stage with this line: Competitive eating is the battleground upon which God and Lucifer waged war for men's souls. It caught me totally unprepared and he went on with some of the most over the top, preposterous, and amazing introductions of the competitive eaters. Here's a little highlight:

Needless to say, we were entertained.
Finally the competition started. Chestnut jumped out to a quick lead, downing 10 hot dogs in the opening minute. I'm pretty sure there were two hot dogs in his mouth in the first 10 seconds. Ridonculous. He built up a four hot dog lead. Kobayashi battle back, took the lead, and was up by several hot dogs late in the competition. Somehow, and I'm still not sure how this happened, Chestnut came back and tied Kobayashi at the very last second. I mean, the very last second. It's known (I'm sure you already knew) Chestnut has a bigger mouth and he somehow stuffed an extra hot dog in at the last second. You don't have to the brät swallowed when time is up, it just has to be in your mouth. But seriously, how many hot dogs can you stuff in your mouth? Especially after eating over 50 in ten minute? But I digress. For the first time in history, there was a tie. 59 hot dogs in 10 minutes. To break the tie, they had an eat off. The first to eat five more hot dogs. No biggie, right?. Joey won by maybe a quarter of a dog. It was so epic.
The place went nuts. There were tens of thousands (seriously, the official count was 45,000 last year) crammed around watching the US reassert it's global dominance. We celebrated for a few minutes and then headed off to the beach, awestruck and amazed. Many of you will remember for our previous post about Coney Island. While we didn't go visit the official freak show this time, the freaks were out en force.

After topping the day off with a funnel cake, I had accomplished pretty much everything I set out to do. We had a sweet time at Coney Island. If you're ever in NY for the fourth, there's only one place you should be.