Ahh, Fourth of July traditions. Grilling, watching baseball and eating 62 hot dogs in ten minutes.
That last one is thanks to Joey Chestnut, who won his fifth straight Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest title this year and will walk away with another Nathan's Mustard championship belt. Chestnut won by nine dogs, beating out second-place finisher Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti.
Chestnut described himself before the event as a "big, hungry, American eating machine," but he ultimately fell short of his own world record of 68 dogs, set back in 2009.
Former world champion Takeru Kobayashi was not in attendance for the second straight year due to a dispute with the event's organizers, Major League Eating. Kobayashi was arrested last year following a bizarre confrontation with police in which he stormed the stage wearing a "Free Kobi" T-shirt and spent the night in jail.
This year, Kobayashi set up his own, non-sanctioned competition at a bar in Manhattan where he ate at the same time as the entrants at Coney Island. He reportedly downed 69 hot dogs at his satellite event, which, if it were official, would have broken Chestnut's world record.
To put those numbers into perspective, the average American eats about 70 hot dogs per year, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. The Council's website also notes that on July 4th, Americans will eat enough hot dogs to stretch across the United States from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. five times. That's a lot of dogs.
NESN Nation wants to know… if you had to, how long would it take you to match Joey Chestnut's feat? Vote in the poll below.
How long would it take you to eat 62 hot dogs?Market Research
