1. How far are you going to push that car up the alley?
2. If you throw up the hotdogs are you disqualified?
Two things you've never asked if you've never been to Club Grand that is. This past Memorial Weekend was a test of strength in more ways than one. The strength of a man's thighs as well as the strength of a man's gut.
Challenge One of the day was the much talked about Car Push. Challenge Two was a Hot Dog Eating Contest. And after competing in both I have to be honest. I can't decide which one was the harder of the two.
There's something about pushing a car that just feels manly. It's the whole damsel in distress, knight in shining armor thing that probably does it. If you find yourself pushing a car you're one of two things....an idiot or a hero. Either you forgot to gas up or you came to the aid of someone who did. So as far as man challenges go, I would rank this one in the upper echelon not only for the hero factor but also for the level of difficulty. Have you ever tried to push a car uphill? It's not that easy. Just ask Jantz.
How it went down. We lined up a 2004 VW Jetta on Bum Blvd (the alley out back of our house) and roughly 30 yards uphill we chalked a finish line. The idea was the quickest to push a car starting from a dead stop through the finish line was the winner. Sounds simple. Simple it was not. Included in the man challenge were two celebrity contestants. Sean the neophyte, who had begged his way in, was allowed to push as well as Lush, an old friend now living in San Francisco in town for the weekend. Lush drew the short straw and led off the competition. Outweighing every one of the challengers by at least 10 lbs, he looked to be the favorite to win. His 20.5 seconds was extremely impressive, although not until all challengers of the day had pushed did we realize really how impressive it was. Lush ended up winning the challenge by an entire second, with the Darkhorse coming in second (actually first among man challengers) with a time of 21.4. This would not be the last time the Darkhorse found himself at the top of the heap that day. The highlight (or lowlight depending on who you talked to) of the car push was when Jantz toed the line. For the record and in defense of the one who calls himself the Machine, he was the lightest of seven challengers and may have been the most hungover. But we've all heard the famous line, "Excuses are like assholes, everyone's got one and I think yours stinks" Jantz battled the car and the car won. Another way to say it is if you ever find yourself broken down on the side of the road, Jantz should be the last person you call. Rumor has it that Jantz's fiance' Jess was in the market for a lighter car after she witnessed her future husband's struggles at the trunk of a VW Jetta. It would be embarassing if Jantz weren't such a confident guy. He's been in the lead for a couple weeks now and has had no problem reminding us of this so when collapsed in agony halfway up the hill it was all too easy for us to mock him mercilessly.
The official times...
Lush 20.5
DJ Dark 21.4
Bing 22.9
Sean 23.0
Pete 29.0
Z$ 31.3
Jantz DNF
As we recovered from the car push with twitching thighs and heavy legs, one challenge remained. The Hot Dog Eating Contest was everything I imagined it to be and more. After a Costco run, I found myself in front of three gigantic pots of boiling water. As we poured 70 bucks worth of purchased mystery meat into the pots I was overcome with dread. Were we really going to ingest all this meat? And do it in less than 10 minutes at that? Well that was the idea. Each man had a plate full of 10 hotdogs, buns included, each and seven minutes on the clock. Most hotdogs in the belly wins. Just as a comparison, given the same amount of time the reigning champ Joey Chestnut (stage name I can only imagine) took down 54 hotdogs and took home $10,000 for his troubles. Our champ ate 7 hotdogs and earned a wicked case of heartburn. That man played his cards right all night. He convinced the rest of us that he was only going to eat one hotdog and then throw in the towel, citing a web article that insisted that eating too many hotdogs could result in death. And as the rest of us played beer pong, took shots of Svedka and routinely got drunk, the champ sat in the corner, sipped his beer and continued to play his cards close to his chest. And when we all stepped up to the plate (and the trunk) our drunken escapades caught up to us and bit us in the ass. And the champ stepped in and swept two events in one night. Who was this man? Non other than the one, the only, DJ Darkhorse. It was an impressive bit of strategy, misdirection and outright willpower and in the end it was 12 big points in the Horse's pocket.
Official hot dogs eaten...
Ant 7 (swallowed)
Bing 7 (still chewing the last one)
Z$ 6 3/4
Jantz 6 1/2
Pete 5
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