Punkin Chunkin canceled for second year

For the second year in a row, gourds will not be flying through First State fall skies. The 2015 World Championship Punkin Chunkin event set for Nov. 7-8 has been canceled.

"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the cancellation of the 2015 World Championship Punkin Chunkin event," a post read Thursday morning on the Punkin Chunkin Facebook page. "Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of our board throughout an exhaustive nationwide search, we have been unable to locate a willing insurer to adequately protect our host venue, our organization, our fans and our spectators."

Ricky Nietubicz, World Championship Punkin Chunkin Association president, confirmed the cancellation.

The event drew thousands to watch homemade contraptions of every type sling pumpkins across great distances, some as far as a mile. The event started in 1986 in a Lewes farm field and grew in popularity. The Discovery Channel in recent years sent crews to document the event for an hour-long television special.

"It's a bummer," he said. "Fortunately there are a lot of other events that we've been able to grow nationwide at this point."

He added that the group was given "all of the leeway in the world from Dover International Speedway."

Dover International Speedway spokesman Gary Camp also confirmed the news, saying that “with about a month to go, I think they ultimately realized they weren’t going to have any luck.”

"There’s been a good amount of work done behind the scenes to prepare for the event," Camp said. But the speedway didn’t want to do much more without proof of insurance coverage, he said.

"The collective decision was made to halt planning for the event," Camp said.

This is the second time the event has had to be canceled since moving from Sussex County, It has drawn thousands of people to watch the massive air cannons and catapults shoot pumpkins over large distances.

Punkin Chunkin has been seeking a permanent home since 2013 after the farmer hosting the longstanding event in Sussex County said he wouldn’t let it return to his property. He and the event’s organizers faced a personal injury lawsuit filed by a volunteer after an ATV accident at the 2011 Chunk. The lawsuit has since been settled out of court.

Before the event was canceled this year, there were concerns about how the grounds at the speedway could accommodate some aspects of the event. Chunkers removed the distance competition from the weekend's activities, acknowledging there wasn't room for the air cannons to propel pumpkins nearly a mile downrange, as there had been in Sussex.

Cindy Small, executive director of Kent County Tourism, said she’s disappointed for the area.

“We’re sad that our businesses are going to miss out,” Small said. “It would have been new business for everyone and would have probably brought a new customer to our area.”

“Like any large event, our hoteliers and restaurateurs were excited about it,” she added. The event would have brought new revenue for all of the businesses.

Moving the event out of Delaware has "always been a serious consideration" and Nietubicz said the group is 100 percent committed to ensuring the event moves forward.

"That's why this is most disappointing. We're going to explore all of our options," he said. "There are more favorable regulatory environments elsewhere... At this point, we're really exploring all options."

Sen. Brian Pettyjohn, R-Georgetown, said Thursday he doubted Punkin Chunkin would ever take root again in Delaware. Pettyjohn sponsored a bill this year to cap pain-and-suffering damages at $1 million for personal injury lawsuits filed against nonprofit companies sponsoring annual special events. The bill has not been discharged from the Senate Executive Committee, and a member of the Delaware Trial Lawyers Association testified against it in a hearing.

"It looks like we're going to lose the event here in Delaware, and we're never going to get it back," Pettyjohn said. "Maybe if this was a New Castle County event, we'd get some motion out of it. But it's been a Sussex County event, and it seems the magnitude of the event is lost on the other legislators."

Nietubicz said the legislation going through "wouldn't have hurt."

"That being said, you know, it's impossible to say what could have, or would have, or may have been the case."

Still, Pettyjohn said, he will renew his push to get his legislation to the Senate floor when the legislature reconvenes in a few months.

"The other side said it's not going to be a problem, and here we are," Pettyjohn said. "I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so."

By late August, when it started selling admission tickets, Punkin Chunkin had dozens of competitor teams registered for the early-November event. But since teams knew the Chunk would not have the distance competition that defines many pumpkin-tossing events around the country, some of them had already made other arrangements to keep the spirit of competition alive.

Ralph Eschborn, captain of the Big 10 Inch air cannon team that's competed at the Chunk since 1998, this week is in Aurora, Colorado, a Denver suburb that for years has put on its own Punkin Chunkin event. Big 10 Inch is practically a Delaware native; the Eschborns live in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania., and the cannon is stored in Delaware City.

Eschborn said the Delaware Chunk's announced format change, from competition to events like blasting old cars apart with pumpkin barrages, opened the door to new chunk events and gave other established events like Aurora's more support.

His team had planned to come to Dover next month — for the fun of it, and to remain eligible for regional competition. "We were going to do target practice, which is a crowd-pleaser, frankly," Eschborn said in an interview. "You blow the doors off a car and the crowd goes wild."

But he said he is skeptical Punkin Chunkin can pull off a comeback in Delaware; more likely, he said, is that the event will move to Maryland's Eastern Shore.

"I always thought this was a Delmarva thing. The culture’s the same. Why not move it over the border 10 miles?" Eschborn said. "They need to redouble their efforts on that."

Reach Jon Offredo at (302) 678-4271 or joffredo@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @JonOffredo. Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter @JamesFisherTNJ or jfisher@delawareonline.com.