Ingenuity and Good Aim

Boom! Thwack! Cannons rumble, catapults strain and heave, and projectiles fly. As a round, orange object hurtles through the air and splatters in the distance, the crowd roars.

This is no ragged band of medieval raiders launching an attack on castle walls; it’s scores of contestants launching pumpkins—yes, pumpkins—over a Delaware field to see who can “chunk” theirs farthest.

More than 80 teams and their massive homemade machines are to compete Nov. 1-3, in the Delaware Punkin Chunkin Association’s 17th annual Punkin Chunkin contest in Millsboro, a town of 2,360, about 45 miles south of Dover.

The competition pits teams of “chunkers” and their machines from all over the United States against one another in such colorful categories as theatrical, air cannon, human powered, catapult, centrifugal, unlimited, and trebuchet (a counterweighted throwing device).

“These machines, for the most part, are built out of junk,” says Frank Shade, a chunker himself and webmaster for the nonprofit Punkin Chunkin Association.

“Everything from dump trucks to school buses to boat trailers to sailboat masts, garage door springs, and belts and pulleys have been used to build them,” he says. “If you could combine the knowledge and the technology that’s used to build these machines, you could probably solve most of the world’s problems. The contraptions just boggle the mind.”

Punkin Chunkin has spawned similar contests throughout the country. Club members have chunked punkins on the Late Show With David Letterman and have traveled to England to provide color commentary on the television show Junkyard Wars.

The annual competition also features a pumpkin cooking contest, bands, fireworks, craft and food vendors, and more.

Despite the hilarity, Punkin Chunkin does have a serious side; proceeds from the event, which drew a crowd of about 30,000 last fall, fund higher-education scholarships in agriculture, engineering, medical technology, and science.

While some small prizes, trophies, and ribbons will be awarded, top prize is—and always has been—bragging rights.

A call to competition

Punkin Chunkin was born in autumn 1986 when buddies John Ellsworth, Trey Melson, Bill Thompson, and Don Pepper decided the anvil-throwing competition they’d held for a decade required too much of a physical recovery afterward.

Talk turned to building medieval machines and to finding an appropriate projectile, Thompson recalls. Since it was pumpkin season, the answer was obvious.

A challenge was issued, and the friends began preparing to compete at noon the Saturday after Halloween. “After all, just because we’re big kids doesn’t mean we can’t play anymore,” Thompson says.

That first year, three teams met in Thompson’s six-acre back yard. Ellsworth and Pepper arrived with a rubber-band machine, which they had built in top-secret; Thompson and Melson brought a catapult fashioned of rough-cut oak and garage door springs with a bucket on the end of a pole; and brothers Chuck and Darrell Burton, friends who also competed, built a catapult with garage door springs and a wooden pole for a boom.

Thompson and Melson’s winning chunk reached 162 feet.

“We lost badly,” Ellsworth says. “We had to challenge them again. That made the second year happen, and the rest is history. I never dreamed it would get as big as it has. Every year is amazing. But if you mention chunkin to anybody, everybody has an idea of how they could do it. It may not be a good idea, but everybody has one.”

By its fourth year, the contest was moved to a local airstrip because pumpkins were flying into the woods behind Thompson’s field, making their point of impact difficult to find. That year, the event drew a crowd of 6,000.

“I had retired in ’88 because the boys were too easy to beat,” Melson says. “I told John (Ellsworth) that when he won the championship I’d come back off the porch and play.”

Ellsworth won in ’93, so Melson returned in ’94 to reclaim the title with the “Universal Soldier,” a large cannon contraption. “That pumpkin shot 2,508 feet and landed on the highway. The state police put a stop to that,” he says, “But I won.”

Last year’s winning “chunk” flew slightly over 3,911 feet. The field they use now is one mile long. “No one’s broken that yet,” Thompson says.

But Melson expects eventually to move to a longer field. “In the next few years, using a three-stage barrel,” he says, “someone will eventually do a good two miles or more with the right pumpkin and a good wind.”

Open to anyone

Safety measures are built into the rules—no freezing or altering pumpkins, no explosive devices, etc.—and no serious injuries have occurred during competition. But there have been some twists and turns.

“In ’88, Chuck Burton forgot to set the stop on his machine’s arm,” Melson says. “After the pumpkin was released, the arm continued swinging and crushed the cab of his pickup truck. Oh, he was upset, but that’s punkin chunkin; no sense in cryin’ over it.”

Then there was the year that the women’s team—called “Bad Hair Day”—used a waste pumper truck to propel their pumpkin. “The truck was all cleaned out,” Thompson says, “but they forgot to clean the hoses. When their turn came, a stream of black water shot 200 feet into the air, and right out of the middle came a small black dot in the sky that was their pumpkin.”

Indeed, Punkin Chunkin is open to anyone. Kids have their own competition category, which pleases Ellsworth.

“Anybody, but kids in particular, will learn more about physics throwing pumpkins than they will ever learn in a lifetime of reading books in a classroom,” he says. “It’s really great for the kids and, of course, the old kids enjoy it, too.”

Brenda Sennett of Ellendale, Del., with her machine “Poor and Hungry,” has been chunking for years. “This used to be a (man) thing, but not anymore,” she says. Sennett is the female record holder in the air cannon class and New York state champion three years running.

A good pumpkin and a good punkin chunker both must have thick hides. “Winning the championship isn’t hard,” Melson says. “It’s defending it that’s really hard. People are out to get you.”

Losing is the hard part, Ellsworth says. “Taking the ribbing can be hard. It’s not just for one year; if you got beat in 1988, you still hear about it in 2001. It doesn’t go away,” he says. “But you can brag about your wins for years, too.”

Ellsworth, now retired from chunkin, resists calls to return (“John, get off the porch and come and get a whippin’,” challenges Melson). But Ellsworth has a new challenge up his sleeve, which he says he’ll announce within the next few years. “And,” he says, “this game is going to be my game.”

Tina Coleman is a Pennsylvania-based freelance writer.

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