Wetass Sport #432–Punkin’ Chunkin’: If you happen to be traveling in Sussex County, Delaware from November 5-7 you might want to wear a hard hat. Because it’s going to be raining pumpkins, thanks to the 2004 Punkin Chunkin World Championships. What the hell is Punkin’ Chunkin’? Good question. PC consists of would-be engineers, various hell-raisers, and out-and-out oddballs, who build all manner of Rube Goldberg-type contraptions whose sole purpose is to fire a pumpkin that weighs between 8 and 10 pounds as far as possible. Here’s a brief history of the sport:

“It began in 1986 as a group of men sat in a local blacksmith shop arguing over who could throw an anvil farthest. Someone heard some local college students were throwing pumpkins by hand to raise funds for their school. The group embellished that event. Anvils turned to pumpkins and Punkin’ Chunkin’ was born.

In November of that year, Bill Thompson, Trey Melson, John Ellsworth and the Burton brothers, Chuck & Darryl, met on Thompson’s farm, outside Milton, Delaware, with their inventions. Ellsworth’s chunker was a combination of ropes, tubes and pulleys, while Melson and Thompson’s chunker was various garage doors springs connected to a car frame. The Burtons machine was a wooden pole mounted on a trailer, powered by auto springs. One of the spectators, Larry McLaughlin, maintenance supervisor in a local town, was seen hanging from one of the poles that day and local punkin chunkin rumors were that he was caught up in the action and was attempting to throw a pumpkin by hand. He tossed it 50 feet. By the end of the day, Thompson and Melson were the victors with a throw of 128’ 2”.

Three teams competed that first year, where only a handful of onlookers watched. But since then, the event evolved from human chunkin’ into oversized slingshots, venerated catapults and air cannons with names such as Bad to the Bone, The Terminator, Mellow Yellow, Poor & Hungry and The Aludium Q36 Pumpkin Modulator (named after a weapon used by Marvin the Martian, the pint-sized, high-strung alien from the Warner Brothers cartoon).”

Today, there are thousands of teams who devote themselves to the fine art of chunkin’ punkins’. And get this. Last year the winning device–named “Second Amendment”–heaved a pumpkin an astounding 4,434 feet. Next think you know they’ll be launching pumpkins into space…



Punkin’ Chunkers: “Goddamn, boys! We should send some of these suckers over to EyeRaq…”

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