CHAMP READY FOR FIRST BITE OF PEPPER-EATING HISTORY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 18, 1992                   TAG: 9202180276
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ED SHAMY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CHAMP READY FOR FIRST BITE OF PEPPER-EATING HISTORY
Out in New Mexico, the smart money's riding on Robert Hager.
Down in Texas, Johnny Espinoza's shaking in his boots.
Here in Roanoke, on Wednesday, Robert Hager will get his first taste of the hot peppers he'll eat to become the world pepper-eating championship.
We hope you'll join him. Hager will be in Lee Plaza - that's on Church Avenue, in front of the Municipal Building - at high noon Wednesday. I'll be there, too. With us will be an 11-ounce can of pickled jalapeno peppers. Exact replicas of the contest peppers, they were shipped to us from Laredo, Texas, by the organizers of Saturday night's digestive-distress match.
This rally will be Hager's official send-off on his history-making journey to the borderlands.
Friday, he leaves at 8 a.m. Saturday at dusk, on the dusty banks of the Rio Grande, Robert Hager will make us all proud. He'll put us on the map.

Paul Bosland has never heard of Robert Hager.
But given the facts, Bosland thinks Hager could win the Laredo pepper eat-off, going away.
Hager has won the Virginia pepper-eating championship seven years in a row, each May in Roanoke.
He does it eating raw jalapenos. Last time around, he ate 18 1/2 peppers in five minutes. The peppers were the size of eggplants.
In Laredo, contestants will eat peppers for 15 minutes. The peppers are pickled. And small.
Bosland, an associate professor of horticulture at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, specializes in hot peppers.
"Jalapenos don't lose too much heat when they're pickled. They stay about the same," he said. "But the pickled peppers are easier on the digestion than the raw."
Strike one for Hager.
There is also a big difference in the time limits of the Roanoke and Laredo contests.
Roanokers eat 'em raw for five minutes. Laredoughs eat 'em pickled for 15.
Bosland says that peppers cause us discomfort because they contain capsaicin, an irritant to our membranes. There is, by the way, 16 times as much capsaicin in the pepper's placenta - the clot of seeds and meat at the base of the pepper stem - as there is in the rest of the pepper.
To fight the hurt, the brain secretes endorphins - neat little pain killers which make humans like Robert Hager go numb rather than experiencing hideous pain.
In Roanoke's five-minute contest, says Bosland, the endorphins don't even have time to kick in.
In Laredo's 15-minute ordeal, the natural anesthetics will numb Robert Hager's mouth, throat, lips and gut. He ought to be able to kick, then, into supernatural high gear and pop pickled peppers like Oreos.
Strike another for Hager.
Espinoza, the long-reigning champ in Laredo, is gonna fall. Mark my words.
Hager will be famous.
"Afterwards," said Bosland, "he may want to go to a private place."

The forecast for the pepper-off in Laredo on Saturday is clear skies, 75 to 80 degrees.
Perfect weather for Robert Hager. Perfect time for history.
Wednesday noon. Lee Plaza. Be there.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB