Gourds Fly At Punkin Chunkin'
Tuesday, November 09 2010
by Rose Hoban
Galen Kirkpatrick, Shane Sater & Hastings Greer on their award winning machine at the World Championship Punkin Chunkin (Photo: Rose Hoban)
Eric Hodge: Most people may wonder what to do with extra pumpkins once Halloween is over. But some folks know exactly what to do with them – throw them across a field as far as they can. And that’s what six teams from North Carolina did this past weekend at the World Championship Punkin Chunkin. Rose Hoban was there and filed this report.
Rose Hoban: If you always assumed pumpkins were for carving into jack-o-lanterns, or for cooking with, then take a trip to southern Delaware some fall. On the weekend after Halloween, thousands of people gather annually to throw pumpkins as far as they can.
That’s Marc Banka from Durham. He was at the World Champion Punkin Chunkin this past weekend, where he brought his machine the Pumpkin Slayer. A thousand feet is actually a relatively short distance at the Punkin Chunkin. Air cannons routinely shoot 8 pound pumpkins more than 3500 feet. Banka’s machine is a catapult powered by stretched latex rubber. One of his team members used a rowing machine during a two minute sprint to cock the catapult for firing.
Sound effects of shouts, cheers from the crowd...
Banka’s was one of six teams representing North Carolina at this year’s ‘Chunk.’ Every machine is a study in backyard physics.
That last voice is Bob Carbo, the granddaddy of the North Carolina punkin chunkers. Carbo’s been competing for 15 years, with his twisted rope machine, called an onager. He says competition makes him feel like a kid.
Carbo’s a psychologist with the Department of Correction. But on the field, competing with a war machine designed by ancient Romans, he transforms himself into medieval knight…
One of the winners was Trey Greer from Chapel Hill, who showed up for the fourth year with a trebuchet he redesigned from last year.
Greer’s trebuchet garnered a lot of attention, because it was completely different from traditional medieval trebuchets and gets a pumpkin from zero to 250 miles an hour in less than a second. Contestants bring their own gourds. They need special pumpkins to withstand that kind of pressure… with thick rinds, otherwise…
So when it came time to fire Greer’s trebuchet, it was tough for security to hold back the crowd of more than 40,000 spectators.
Sound of firing the machine.
That throw was 1920 feet, close to the modern record.
Alright! That is unbelievable! Crowd cheering…
Greer credits his son Hastings with the idea for the design. Hastings was also at the competition, with a machine he built with two friends from Chapel Hill High School.
The boys did well on Friday, then broke the throwing arm on their machine Saturday. Shane Sater is one of the younger Greer’s teammates.
The boys worked all day Saturday to fix the machine and competed again on Sunday morning. But their initial throw was good enough to take first place in the youth division. In all, out of six North Carolina teams at the contest, five drove home with trophies. And they all say they’ll be back next year.
Rose Hoban, North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC.
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