Sunday, October 22, 2006

 

A Fair To Remember

Blogspot was being naughty last night, so I scolded it harshly and sent it to bed early. Hopefully it was play nice today. Here's last night's post:
So a couple of weeks back I went to see the Square Regional Finals down at the GA National Fair in Perry. I had been there for Thursday and Friday, but missed Saturday. The first two days the numbers among the preliminary rounds were rather low, but on Saturday they apparently turned around. So Sunday's regional finalists included a few heavyweights (pun only slightly intended). I got into the park a little late as traffic was horrid and I wound up in a parking place that seemed to be 2 miles from the entrance. I was lucky enough to get a funnel cake and find a seat. For the finals they had about 15 eaters. The lower seeded eaters were at ground level and the higher seeds were up on the big stage.
If you've never witnesses a Square Off then you've missed out. Obviously the eaters are worth watching, but until you've seen it live, you really haven't seen it all. I saw one of the qualifying rounds several years back, but those are nothing compared to the regional finals, and I can only imagine how the championship is. The staff who run the contest perform a choreographed dance as they ensure all cups are full of water, and the contestants always have plenty of burgers to eat.
In the qualifing rounds where it's rare to see more than 10 or 12 eaten, they simply count the empty boxes. When it gets to the higher rounds, that would be impossible. You can't really imagine the number of Krystals that are put away until you see them being staged for the contest.
They load up trays of 20 burgers and as one tray is emptied they reload with another full tray. That way when it's done they simply count trays then subtract the number uneaten on the last tray. (For the math geeks among us, thats: Nt * 20 - Nr, where Nt is the number of trays, and Nr is the number of Krystals remaining).
This amazing dance of consumption lasts for 8 minutes. (Think the duration of Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin.) All the while there's an announcer screaming out the current counts, water splashing everywhere, and of course all this is done in front of a large, live, rowdy audience. Simply amazing. Kenny, Brad, Kitty, and Keith do an amazing job, for sure!
In case you haven't heard, you'll be able to witness this amazing dance, and of course the eating, next weekend as ESPN run the Square Off finals live on Saturday, with a replay the next day on ESPN2. I am trying to make it up there for the contest and perhaps the night before, but work is sort of getting in the way.
Once the contest is done, the cleanup process begins. It is then that is really becomes clear just how much has been eaten:
Click on the picture and look at the piles of boxes. And that's just for the ones on the stage! By the way, Brad is the extremely tall gentleman in the black shirt. You may also remember Michael who was at my KLHOF induction and a regional manager. He's just to the right of Brad in the yellow shirt. That's Krystal Kitty behind the table between the two of them. The guy with the 2 fluffy furry tails on his hat is Dale Boone who won the regional. Dale had just come off competitive eating suspension. A fact that, combined with his name (apparently tracable back to Daniel Boone) and hiw rowdy loud southern style has made him a bit of a Competitive Eating "bad boy." Why is this starting to sound like Wrasslin'?
Anyway, once the stage was cleaned off, they returned to the locating that they'd been set up in for the previous 4 days and starting breaking down that set to move on to Jackson, MS.
It was a sad, sad moment for me. But I know they'll be back next year. I will too. That's DJ Jazzy Keith to the right helping break down the set. And in case you missed it, Keith and Kitty got engaged while on the Square Off Tour this year. Never doubt the power of a Krystal!
As for that nifty tent in the background of the picture, come back tomorrow and I'll tell you all about it. Lets just say: I gotta get me one of them!
Krystal Lovers like it steamy.

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