National Buffalo Wing Fest, held this past Saturday and Sunday, saw 92,000 attendees (up from 78,000 last year), and the hungry crowd devoured 40 tons of Chicken Wings.
The 8th annual Labor Day weekend event set a single day attendance record on Saturday, with 52,000 attendees.
Festival surveys found people came from 49 states and 31 countries to enjoy the many contests and other festivities and, of course, eat chicken wings. Oddly enough, the only state not represented at the Wing Fest was Arkansas, home of Tyson Chicken!
Sonya Thomas, a petite and pretty Burger King manager from Alexandria, Virginia, was again declared America's chicken wing eating champ, for the 3rd time in recent years. She ate 169 chicken wings (3.38 pounds of wing meat) in 12 minutes. After winning that Contest on Saturday, Thomas returned on Sunday to win the Buffalo Buffet Bowl. Beating all competitors, she ate four pounds of Buffalo-style foods, including Beef on Weck, Pizza, Chicken Wings, and Chicken Fingers, in 4 minutes and 51 seconds.
Other contest winners include the following:
Amateur
Wing Eating Contest: David Solomon of Orlando, Florida
Miss
Buffalo Wing: Nina Pierino, 18, of
Chaffee, NY
Buffalo
Blue Cheese Bowl: Andrew Padilla
of the Bronx (47 wings)
Amateur
Traditional Sauce-off: Adam Fries
of Williamsville, NY
Amateur
Creative Sauce-off: Aaron Travis
of Endwell, NY
XXX
Atomic Wing Eating Contest: Vince
Wenger, Schenectady, NY
Celebrity
Wing Cook-off: Chef Kevin Roberts
Baby
Wing Competition: (Under 2)
Christian Stewart, West Seneca, NY
(2
and older) Samuel Breece,
Charlotte, North Carolina
.5k
Running of the Chickens: (Tie)
Jake Johnson of Gunnersville, NY, and Walter
Potocki of Lockport, NY
Festival founder and "WING KING" Drew Cerza says he is overwhelmed with the world's excitement over this unique festival and amazed that this year's attendees ate 40 tons of wings. He adds, "That's a lot of angry chickens."
To
learn more, visit www.BuffaloWing.com.
Top image: Bill Murray and Chris Elliott in a still from Osmosis Jones, the film that inspired the festival.
Big pat on the back to Drew & all.
Having said that, beef on weck, pizza, chicken wings, and chicken fingers and not proper nouns and shouldn't be capitalized. Doesn't anyone proofread at BRO?