Dr. Kuntzman To Deliver Paper At Next Competitive Eating Convention On “The Effect Of Environmental Factors On Competitive Eating Behaviors”

Competitive eating experts suggest that Joey Chestnut’s record-breaking feat this week in Arizona is tainted:

Like Bob Beamon’s wind-aided 1968 Olympic long jump in the thin air of Mexico City, Barry Bonds “clear”- and “cream”-aided 73 homer season in 2001, or Roger Maris’s eight-extra-game home-run season in 1961, Chestnut’s 59-1/2 HDB record should have an asterisk — at least until he repeats the “achievement” under actual game conditions.

Without air conditioning, I mean.

Certainly Chestnut is one of history’s greatest eaters. But the full impact of what he did last Saturday in an air-conditioned shopping mall outside of Tempe, Arizona simply can’t be known until he does it again.

In the heat of an actual competition.

After all, last year at Coney Island, with the temperatures and humidity both well above 80, Chestnut finished 1-3/4 dogs behind his nemesis, Takeru Kobayashi, who ate 53-3/4 and captured his sixth consecutive Mustard Yellow International Belt, the world-renowned symbol of gustatory greatness.

And columnist Gersh Kuntzman knows of what he speaks:

I conducted a completely scientific experiment at an indoor Nathan’s stand. With the air conditioning blowing at full bore, I was able to down two HDBs in just one minute (such a pace, if sustained over 12 minutes, would have won me the Mustard Yellow Belt only a decade ago, by the way).

Then I bought two more dogs and took them outside, into the heat and mugginess of a normal New York summer day.

I struggled to get even one of the dogs down my quivering gullet. My face broke out in a sweat (that’s real garlic satisfaction in there, my friends) and I got woozy from the heat.

The result of my experiment was clear: Air conditioning is to competitive eating what steroids are to baseball or, more accurately, the power nail driver is to Amish barn-raising.