2009 Punkin Chunkin World Championship - Bridgeville, DE

Think this guy knows poetry?

With apologies to Henry Wadsworth Long Fellow...
They shoot a pumpkin into the air
It splattered to earth, I know not where
For, so swiftly it was chunked, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

How's that for some Fireside Poetry? Impressed?
That's certainly more intellectually stimulating than the poop and genitalia related references I usually make. Then again this is just the beginning of what could be a lengthy post so I'll see if I can fit a sophomoric joke or 5 further down. Keep your fingers crossed.

I did not actually do the shooting of any pumpkins or the locating of any pumpkins or anything really besides watching and beer drinking at the World Championship Punkin Chunkin outside Bridgeville, DE. I did drive the 3+ hours from Pics of Me in Front of Stuff Manor, located in Central/North Jersey. That is almost a day in dog years. Luckily, Movember had started and Cleo Possum helped me power through the long drive. Stronger than a cup of truck-stop coffee, Cleo did not let me quit until the trip was through. I wish I had an anecdote from the drive considering that everyone always says It's the Journey not the Destination. In this instance the journey was in the dark through New Jersey and Delaware. This picture may have been taken on the return trip or at some other point in Movember. It certainly was not the Oregon Trail.


I did not see the graves of anyone who dies from consumption on this trip. Oddly, though I shot over a half a ton of meat, I could still only carry 100 1bs of meat home with me. I did not harm any pumpkins in the making of this blog but I can not speak for any one else featured in this blog. If you or any of your friends are from the ASPCS (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Squash), you may just want to navigate to a different url. I recommend this one.
On November 6th, the Pics of Me in Front of Stuff Team, aka CP and I, headed down to Bridgeville, DE to watch the 24th annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin. In case you missed it above, I drove through the night to get there even if looked bright outside in the picture. After modestly starting 23 years ago with 4 competitors throwing a pumpkin up to 126 feet, the Chunkin has grown to feature 72 teams chunkin punkins up to 4000+ feet. As a fan of mostly useless artifacts and pointless events not to mention tailgating and beer I found myself drawn to the Chunkin. There's no avoiding it, I have been to far too many NASCAR races to deny my affinity for sitting in a field with a beer in my hand. Unfortunately for CP, she was forced to go with me and perform her photographic duties. The Official Mom and Step-Father of Pics of Me in Front of Stuff also drove down to Delaware to partake in the excitement.

This guy was there, too.

We all know excitement just follows This Guy.
He may be linked to the destruction of hundreds of pumpkins.

And maybe a few brain cells.

November 7th was the second day of the competition. The current format has 12 different divisions based on chunkin mechanism, age, and sex. The catapults and trebuchets and air cannons and all of the other chunkers are lined up along a firing line by division. The officials work their way down the line giving each team one shot to chunk their punkin. There is also a large award for the longest overall chunk. The longest chunk award has been dominated in recent history by the air cannon division. The air cannons are huge pieces of equipment that resemble artillery pieces. These cannons use compressed air as opposed to gun powder. If you have a chance to watch it, I highly recommend the show on the Science Channel chronicling this year's Punkin Chunkin as well as the show highlighting the road to the Chunkin. Air cannons can launch pumpkins close to a mile in the air. The air cannons looked terrific on television. Up close and personal, I felt the air cannons were anticlimactic since the pumpkins are shot out of the cannon so high up and at such a high-velocity that they are nothing but black specks at most. The distance, noise, and post-chunking steam not withstanding, the air cannons were my least favorite competitors to watch. Re-watch Snot Rocket chunk their punkin above.

The air cannons were not the only ones vying for major awards at the Punkin Chunkin. Big things come in small packages. The small packages here were tiny elementary school-aged girls vying for the title of Little Miss Sunshine or Lil Miss Punkin Chunkin or Lil Miss Sunkinshine or something to that effect. My feelings regarding the disturbing activity of child beauty pageants aside, this chilly little girl won the award this year. She was by far the smallest girl on the stage. Can't you just sense the cuteness emanating from her? I am surprised my camera can handle that level of cuteness. She might be bound for great things. There is a recent precedent for such things. Beauty pageant contestants from a state no one really pays attention to have been known to 'Go Rogue'. We have seen this before. Mark my words, this little girl could be running for Vice-President in 2048. I can envision the Lil' Bush or more likely Lil' Rovie plotting behind the jungle gym somewhere. A chill just ran up my spine.
The air cannons and the cute little girls were not the only excitment at the chunkin. Oh lords no! They were both joined at the Punkin Chunkin by trebuchets and catapults, the most visually impressive categories of squash launching methods. Those categories appealed to my inner Roman Legionnaire (MAXIMUS! MAXIMUS!) ready to set siege via assault by punkin. For the uninformed, trebuchets launch their projectiles based on the leverage created by dropping a counterweight while catapults encompass many means of launching projectiles (aka chunkin punkins) via non-explosive means including trebuchets, torsion catapults, and balista. Based solely on potential energy built up in a spring pulled tight or a counterweight help up in the air they are really simple physics gone wild. Just think if they put commercials about Physics Gone Wild on Comedy Central at 2AM. The only porn related joke I can think is of something about black bodies. I might get back to you on it, Dear Reader, but probably not.

The most visually imposing catapult was the trebuchet Yankee Siege.

My first thought was that the big damn thing could hit my house from here. My second thought was these guys have to be Red Sox fans considering they're from New Hampshire - why call themselves Yankee Seige? Why does most of New England dislike the New York Yankees but consider Yankee ingenuity a good thing? And why do they say Wicked Pissa? Luckily my house is more than 2000+ feet away which is the still-impressive distance Yankee Seige chunked their punkin while we were in attendance. The 12,000 lb counterweight allowed the trebuchet from New England to launch a pumpkin 2034 feet to set a new world record. For those of you not hip to the conversion, that is nearly half a mile! This is not something you probably can do in your backyard. But you can rent Yankee Siege...so maybe you can! Despite the imposing Northeastern grandeur of Yankee Seige my favorite punkin chunker had to be Merlin, a trebuchet out of Leesburg, VA. Merlin is a floating arm trebuchet which uses a much lighter counterweight and relies on much greater efficiency in transfer of the energy dropping weight to the arm.

This launching mechanism makes for a very entertaining chunk.

You could say that about the whole day.