It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a pumpkin!
by Dave Gibson
Superpowers notwithstanding, not even Superman dared fly over Aurora, CO, last weekend for fear of being hit by a pumpkin.
Twenty teams of “punkin chunkers” lined up their homemade contraptions at the 19th annual Punkin Chunkin competition at Arapahoe Park to see who could propel their pumpkin the farthest. You might ask, “Are these people out of their gourds?” Well, maybe, but in a good way. The majority of the teams were local, but some traveled from as far away as California, Illinois, and Delaware. If you were so inclined to throw a pumpkin, one might think it would be chucked, but the powers that be decided that “punkin chunkin” has a better ring to it than “pumpkin chucking.” The “chunkin” part of the moniker comes into play once the pumpkins hit the ground and explode into a myriad of scattered chunks.
What did those poor pumpkins ever do to deserve such treatment? To be fair, absolutely nothing, but you can only carve so many jack-o-lanterns and bake so much pie, bread, and cookies from them and even after feeding the rest to farm animals, there are a lot left over. After all was said and done, the pumpkins met a glorious end and went to very good use in entertaining the spectators and fertilizing the earth.
The devices used varied as widely as imaginations. Taking first place as the only machine in its division, the centrifugal Inertia III made the pumpkin fly 90 ft. Human-powered King Kilt was another sole entry, managing a toss of 103 ft. Some of the pumpkins disintegrated upon release to measures of dismay and delight. Team Howler Bear took top honors in the Youth class by hurling the oversized gourd 318 ft. Trebuchets (catapults that utilize counterweights to achieve momentum) cranked things up a notch or two with team Pluto launching a pumpkin almost to the previous planet of the same name! Their distance of 2,992 ft. bested the next closest competitor by 2,400 feet. Catapult Chunk Norris kicked the numbers up to 3,243 ft. Of the torsion type of catapults, Ethos sailed the pumpkin the greatest distance, heaving it 3,776 ft.
Saving the best for last, the big guns were unveiled. Boulder’s Stratocaster almost reached the stratosphere with a blast of 3,801 ft. Inventors, fabricators, and owners Michael and Debra Boyd of Wheatridge have entered their unmistakably orange air cannon Kamikaze all nineteen years of the event. They’ve achieved distances over 4,000 feet in the past, but facing a stiff headwind this time around they came up just short, registering a mark of 3,970 ft. With the projectiles traveling at over 500 mph when exiting the barrel, if you blinked at the wrong time you missed the action. Sonic Gourd 2 of Amarillo, Texas, broke the 4,000-foot barrier booming their pumpkin 4,209 ft. Guinness World Record Holder Big 10 Inch was the Grand Champion. On Sept. 9th, 2010, in Moab, UT, they were the first “punkin chunkers” to break the mile mark. At altitude under favorable conditions, their monumental toss of 5,545 ft. set the standard for all other “chunkers” to shoot for. 4,276 ft. was the best they could muster on this go-around. A benign exercise in wanton destruction, in the end, no birds, planes, or superheroes were harmed.
Dave Gibson has been a contributor at the Weekly Register–Call for thirteen years. To view past articles and pictures go to www.DaveGibsonImages.com.