FREEDOM OF SPEECH

ALMOST FAMOUS

By Josh Johnson | Rocky Mountain Chronicle
Published: December 2007

A MASS OF KISSERS AND A MOB OF BIKERS MAY LAND NORTHERN COLORADO IN THE RECORD BOOKS.

On a recent Saturday in November, Joe Sandy did something no one else had ever done. He won the first annual Cheba Hut Ranch Dressing Drinking Contest, held in front of the sandwich shop, in the center of a blocked off Laurel Street in Fort Collins. And he may have set a world record.

Contestants, all after the first-place prize of $500 cash and a year’s worth of Cheba Hut subs, raced to consume 24 ounces of ranch, the equivalent of a large drink at some restaurants. A table with five black bowls was set up in the street for the twenty participants competing in four heats.

“I want to see the bowls totally black,” Cheba Hut owner Scott Jennings told contestants.

El Pollo, a man dressed in a chicken costume, clinched the first round, chugging the seasoned cream in fifty seconds, only to be outdone in the second by Queen Cream Guzzler, who beat the chicken by an impressive twenty seconds. Most contestants, hands shaking as their bodies fought back the dressing, barely finished in under a minute, if at all. Unlike Joe Sandy’s, their talents did not include drinking ranch.

In the third round, Sandy calmly finished the dressing in an astonishing eighteen seconds. At that point, Jennings knew the contest had been won, but he let the fourth round roll anyway.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before,” Jennings says, referring to Sandy’s gulping feat.

But is there any way of truly knowing if someone at some fraternity house somewhere has consumed ranch faster? Perhaps someone drank 32 ounces in 39 seconds? Though Sandy’s face expressed the triumphant pride of a world champion as he raised the trophy, without official recognition from Guinness World Records, formerly known as Guinness Book of World Records, or the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which governs the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest and more than eighty other eating competitions, Sandy can’t know for sure whether he is a record breaker or simply a talented ranch drinker.

Both Guinness World Records and the IFOCE were founded, in part, to determine, once and for all, the real world-record holders for peculiar pseudo-sports, like chugging ranch. And over the next year, it’s possible that 23,635 people will have the honor of saying they broke a world record in Northern Colorado.

BREAKING AND ENTERING

The Guinness record for “Largest Parade of Bicycles” has been turned over just four times prior to 2007. The record for “Most Couples Kissing Simultaneously,” in contrast, has a history of changing holders at least once a year. And both honors may be coming to Larimer County to sit on the mantle along with Fort Collins’ prize of “Best Place to Live” from Money magazine.

For New Belgium Brewing Company and the 4,300 freaks who showed up to ride their bikes in the Tour de Fat on September 22, breaking a world record was almost an accident. Two thousand people showed up in 2006, but this year’s ride exploded into a record breaker with little promotion. In fact, breaking the record was a side thought. Many riders found out about the Guinness attempt the day of the event, and the brewery only advertised the attempt via press release one week prior.

“When I was first turned on to the record in January, it was held by Paul Frank in Chico, California, at 169 people,” says Chris Winn, aka Reverend Ballyhoo and the tour’s coordinator. “Then, all of a sudden in July of this year, the record was broken, and it was like, ‘Oh, shit.’”

Body-Marketing in Taipei City, Taiwan broke the record this summer with 1,901 riders, destroying Chico’s record but still not coming close to Tour de Fat’s ride last year. Still, without Guinness approval, New Belgium can’t claim the international title.

Winn is still waiting to hear if Guinness’ review of the videotape — showing 3,635 riders leaving and returning, as required — meets the standards for approval of the record. He expects news any day now. Then the riders can legitimately enter the ranks of nail farmers, house-of-cards builders and overweight twins on motorcycles — world-record holders.

“Official or unofficial, we crushed Taipan,” Winn says, adding that the attempt itself is the real point. He clearly does, however, want the title.

“Not all of us can get an Olympic medal. Not all of us can be a world champion. But Guinness World Records allows anybody to be remarkable in their own way,” Winn says. “It’s like one of those fifty things you gotta do before you die: Set a world record.”

Since its first issue in 1955, Guinness has been the world’s authority on records, holding it’s own record for “Best Selling Copyrighted Series.” But it’s the Human Achievements section that perhaps holds the world’s imagination firmest. The category gives everyone a chance to make history and be a champion. Most people recognize the photo of the fat twins on motorcycles. To be a world champion record-breaker, all one has to do is sing Elvis-style for more than 43 hours, eleven minutes and eleven seconds, an attainable feat, to be listed with Madonna, who holds the record for “Most Successful Female Artist.” Winn sees the feat of breaking records as sort of vaudevillian, and he thinks Guinness’ most magical days may have passed.

“In the Eighties, Seventies and Sixties, that thing was huge,” he says. “There’s something about Guinness Book of World Records that is sort of a lost, but maybe recovering, art. Most people in modern culture are content to watch other people excel. People could be going for their own record, but they’d rather watch Barry Bonds break his.”

Winn references the popularity of Evel Knievel, the daredevil and multiple Guinness record holder, boasting one for forty broken bones. (Knievel recently died.) In past decades, Winn says, “You had guys who were going for that self-made world title, world champion of something.”

For the truly torpid record-seekers who find bike riding or pogo sticking more than 173 times a minute taxing, Kim Vecchio hopes they’re willing to kiss their way into the record books.

THE WORLD CUP OF KISSING

On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend 2008, Engaging Loveland, an event and marketing nonprofit for Loveland, will try to break the much-contested “Most Couples Kissing Simultaneously” record, which was broken by Radio Kameleon in Tuzla, Bosnia in September with 6,980 couples kissing for the minimum ten seconds while standing. Vecchio, Engaging Loveland’s executive director, hopes to get ten thousand couples.

The kissing record has long traded hands among Chile, Philippines and Hungary, which held it from June to September 2007. Though Loveland has attempted to break it once in the past, with only a couple thousand people showing up, America has never held the title. The attempt will be tied to an event that draws fourteen thousand, the Thunder in the Rockies motorcycle rally at The Ranch, and with ample time to plan and publicize, America could bring home kiss-off gold. But that might only fuel a push to raise the record in other nations, especially Philippines and Hungary, who viciously duel for the honor.

“I’m sure they’ll be watching closely to see what we’ll do,” Vecchio says. “Actually, I kind of don’t want them to know we’re doing it, because it encourages them to get the record higher. If they chose to break the record again on Valentine’s Day, I’ll be closely watching. I think Hungary will attempt again. My guess is Philippines is ticked off right now, and Chile is very ticked off. Chile lost the whole thing.”

Vecchio hopes to woo kissers to The Ranch by instilling a sense of pride in being a record breaker, as well as claiming the prize for America.

“We want to say, ‘We are the United States. We are competing. And we are going to win this competition,’” she says. Vecchio hopes to use a gigantic flag borrowed from a car dealership as a backdrop to the kissing.

But, more specifically, Vecchio wants to bring the attention even closer to home. It’s her job. Like the marketing company that broke the bike-parade record in Taiwan, and the radio station in Bosnia, Engaging Loveland hopes to reap some serious publicity for its mission: to promote the Sweetheart City.

“If you truly do something incredible, what comes?” New Belgium’s Winn asks. “Press.”

Be it a junior high school, Barnes and Noble, the World Series of Poker or the nation of Bosnia, submitting a record for review could lead the organizing institution to, at the very least, inclusion into one of Guinness’ now-many books (the mass-market paperback is the definitive edition) or a noteworthy blip in the international news streams.

“It doesn’t seem like Guinness is tailoring to the individual anymore as much as they see this as a way to get marketing for companies,” Winn says.

Guinness, however, doesn’t just hand over free publicity.

For one, the staff at Guinness World Records is impossible to get a hold of. Vecchio says she can’t call or email them and must only correspond through snail mail. Winn likewise had trouble corresponding with Guinness, which is why New Belgium couldn’t advertise its record attempt, though they paid $700 for an expedited request for application materials. (Applicants who have time to wait for Guinness can apply for free.)

“There’s no way to reach out to them,” Winn says. “They reach out to you.”

The difficulty in correspondence makes it hard to decipher some of the rules specific to the record you’re attempting to break, but that also adds to Guinness’ mystique. Winn wonders if the no-gaps-between-clusters-of-riders rule for the bike-parade record applies to a distance of a couple of feet. And Vecchio wonders if the must-be-standing-while-kissing rule means she can’t count kissers in wheelchairs.

Guinness does offer to send an adjudicator to events, presumably from its London office, for the cost of airfare, lodging and an undisclosed per-day attendance fee. Otherwise, attempts must follow a Guinness-approved method of measuring attendance and be monitored by two independent officials, one of whom must be “qualified or an official in the area of the record attempt,” and the other must have “good standing in the local area,” like a mayor. New Belgium didn’t use the Guinness official and therefore had to provide receipts from City of Fort Collins Police Services and press clippings, along with other documentation.

“Having this kind of policy in place is awesome,” Vecchio says. “If they were to allow anybody and everybody to submit, who’s to say it’s official? And if you don’t have the record by Guinness, then technically you don’t own the record.”

“It’s not a cheap process,” Winn adds.

HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Whatever his ranch-drinking achievements, it is unlikely Joe Sandy will make it into the Guinness World Records. In 1991, the organization trimmed its Human Achievement section to eliminate eating and drinking records deemed dangerous. This includes swallowing swords and consuming odd items like bicycles, but the new guidelines are also a move away from eating competitions. Some of those records are still in the book, but Guinness doesn’t accept new attempts, and other, newer records, like 2007’s “Longest Full-Body Burn (Without Oxygen),” seem to be more dangerous than those banned. Ranch-dressing consumption is not a Guinness record.

In order for Sandy to hold a legit world record for chugging ranch, he needs Cheba Hut owner Scott Jennings to register his event with the International Federation of Competitive Eating. IFOCE cofounder Richard Shea says there currently is no record for consuming ranch dressing.

Jennings says he has “no intention of going Guinness,” but perhaps a ranch record can do for Cheba Hut what the chicken-wing record did for Hooters, the baked-bean record for 84 Lumber, and the kolaches (a Czech pastry) record for GoldenPalace.net — garner international expsoure.

Jennings is planning to hold the event again next year, perhaps bringing all seven franchised restaurants into the competition. Though he says, “The ranch contest was to draw press,” one gets the impression he means local coverage, not international, hoping only to build some excitement around the store.

“It’s just nonsense. It has nothing to do with nothing,” he says of the contest. “Not a lot of people do that anymore.”

If Jennings requests Guinness-like legitimacy from the IFOCE, Sandy may have to swear off the training he credits for his winning technique. “I practiced with Hidden Valley Ranch. That’s the key; it’s thicker,” Sandy says. The IFOCE “is against at-home training of any kind.”

Recognized or not, Sandy is a champion in the Human Achievement record-holding spirit. Like biking and kissing, eating is something we all do but hold no record in. For the less talented, it requires doing the mundane in numbers. For Sandy, it requires doing the usual at high speed and grand volume.

“I can benchmark what it means to eat a donut,” says Shea, from the IFOCE. “Or I can benchmark what it means to eat twelve chicken wings, so it’s fascinating to see a dude eat 48.”

Next year, Jennings hopes to personally jump over the pot-themed restaurant’s VW bus with a four-wheeler, like Knievel, though “I have to jump it the fat way.”

It wouldn’t be a record by any means.

“Or maybe we can jump the longest sandwich.”

That would surely break some kind of record, if not two at once.