With Pressure and Perseverance, Pumpkins Do Fly

Virginia 'Chunker' Aims to Set Record

CULPEPER, Va., Oct. 14 -- There once was a time when Ray Tolson thought the sport of "Punkin Chunkin" sounded as crazy as can be, when the notion of spending as much as $200,000 to build a 100-foot-long "gun" designed to fire a pumpkin nearly a mile seemed silly.

But that was another Ray Tolson, a Ray Tolson who didn't study air pressure and cloud speed in search of the perfect "air shelf" where an 8- to 10-pound pumpkin could sail perfectly. Who didn't commission university horticulturists to breed pumpkins that are precisely 9.5 inches in diameter, round and with a thick skin -- the perfect projectile.

With the World Championship Punkin Chunkin and a chance to best his world record of 4,434.28 feet less than three weeks away, Tolson, 61, was in his yard in Culpeper County on Friday, furiously fiddling with the gun. He said he has spent 5,000 hours building the glistening, black steel Second Amendment Too, which is why, he said, the grass has grown tall on his five acres, partially obscuring the half-dozen vehicles he used to spend his free time tinkering with.

"I haven't had time to mow," said Tolson, a small man who calls himself a high-tech redneck. "The point is to use the maximum G4 force on the pumpkin without destroying it."

His blue eyes twinkle.

A smile lifts his bushy, brown-and-gray beard.

"There's nothing like it!"

Tolson's fanaticism is hardly unusual in a sport that went from a casual fall contest 20 years ago among friends throwing anvils (then pumpkins, once their backs started hurting) to a $25-a-head event that draws 40,000 people and corporate sponsorship. This year, all machines are required to comply with American Society of Mechanical Engineers standards.

Any increase in bureaucracy hasn't hurt popularity. About 60 teams were turned away from participating in the Nov. 4 to 6 contest because there just wasn't space for them in Millsboro, Del. One hundred teams will compete.

Since the original Punkin Chunkin began in Georgetown, Del., 40 to 50 similar events have sprung up across the country. These chunkers describe themselves as "renaissance rednecks," people who are into engineering, ballistics and gadgets to the degree that the championship Web site lists this as one of its top questions attendees may ask: "What are the GPS coordinates of the Chunk location?"

Frank Shade, president of the Punkin Chunkin championship event, said the growth hasn't changed the essential character of a chunker: "Chunkers are fun-loving, gregarious people. At the drop of a hat, they're going to go chunk."

Despite increasingly taking on the tone of a big, corporate festival, Punkin Chunkin is essentially a service organization. Everyone who helps put on the event is a volunteer, and all the profit goes to college scholarships and to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. The event gives away about $80,000 each year.