Pumpkins in the air

Pumpkin chunking! Elaborate, home-made machines hurl ripe pumpkins high into the air to smash down hundreds of yards away. What’s not to like?

Pumpkin chunking under the New Mexico sky

I stumbled across the World Championship Punkin Chunkin on cable TV a few years ago and was immediately fascinated by this odd sport’s  geek/redneck eccentricity: Big Bang Theory meets Dukes of Hazzard. So when I heard about the annual pumpkin chunking festival in Estancia, NM, I just had to be there.

Estancia is a small town about an hour’s drive over the mountains from Albuquerque, down a straight road through billiard-table flatlands of farms and ranches. The pumpkin chunking contest was started by local farmers 20 years ago and evolved into a full-blown local festival. I missed the town parade and by the time I arrived, Estancia’s main street was eerily empty. As I approached the field on the outskirts of town, I saw the chunking machines towering over most of the population of Estancia. I parked in a dusty field, trudged past the kiddie carnival, funnel cake and green-chile cheeseburger vendors, and found a seat in the bleachers.

An air cannon fires

The machines, about 10 of them lined up at the edge of the field, had colorful names such as Chunk Wagon, Patriot, The Judge and (with an all-female crew) Bea Dazzled. Most were air cannons that use compressed air to propel an eight to 10-lb pumpkin through a gun barrel up to 100 feet long. Chunking enthusiasts spend tens of thousands of dollars to build these behemoths and tow them on trailers to places like Estancia and, if they succeed, to the world championship in Delaware.

It’s not a fast-paced competition. An air horn sounds and a pumpkin is launched with a loud whoosh. You have to look hard to see the pumpkin flying through the air: I missed it most of the time. Then there’s a wait for the ground crew to locate the pumpkin and record the distance of the shot. That’s a little easier in New Mexico because the pumpkin kicks up a cloud of dust when it hits the ground. The ground crew, sheltering from errant pumpkins in a horse trailer downrange, races to the point of impact in an ATV and radios the distance to the referees. Some of the air cannons recorded shots of more than 2,000 feet, nowhere near the world record of more than a mile but still impressive.

A muzzle-loader

Using produce as cannonballs is an inexact science. Some pumpkins disintegrate upon leaving the cannon barrel in a phenomenon known as pie. “There’s more pie on the field,” the announcer said.

Impressive as the air cannons were, I wish I’d seen more trebuchets: modern versions of medieval siege engines that use a counterweight, long lever and sling to fling projectiles. It’s fascinating to watch the ungainly contraptions (and wonder whether they’ll fall apart).

I’m not sure who won because I didn’t stick around. The winner didn’t much matter to me because I got such a kick out of watching the pointless but satisfying spectacle of big machines… chunking pumpkins.