Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 2, 1993 TAG: 9305020058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Twice a runner-up to Hager, who stunned the jalapeno-eating world on Friday by announcing his retirement, Johnson won this year's crown by eating 10 jalapenos in 93 seconds.
For the effort, Johnson won a $75 top prize - hardly enough for a consultation with a reputable gastroenterologist, which is exactly who a man who has just eaten 10 raw hot peppers in a minute and a half might want to consult.
Johnson moved awkwardly out of the gate after the opening gun and appeared to gag down his first two peppers.
"I hadn't eaten a raw pepper since last year's contest," said Johnson afterwards, red-eyed but otherwise showing no physical ill effects of his Herculean performance.
It took a few seconds to activate last year's ulcers, throw his body into shock, totally screw up his metabolism and cruise to victory.
This year's runner-up, Patrick Nunn, ate eight peppers. He won $25. Six others finished out of the money.
The champ, 33, figured to go back home to Moneta for a little Saturday afternoon gardening and be at work sorting mail at the main post office in Roanoke by evening.
"I don't feel bad at all," he claimed. "Ten's not hardly enough to hurt you."
If the birthday card you mailed Saturday gets lost for a millenium or two and gets to the birthday girl or boy covered with postmarks from Afghanistan, the Bermuda Triangle and Venus, Keith Johnson's jalapeno-clouded mind may have played a role.
Flippant humor aside, and with all deference to the new champion, there are some shadows over Johnson's new title.
For starters, in a year during which the Roanoke Valley watched the disappearance of such cultural, economic and personal cornerstones as the Shenandoah Drive-In sign, Mayor Noel Taylor and Dominion Bank, Robert Hager's retirement serves as just a reminder of fundamental and unstoppable shifts now under way in our community.
I don't know what they are, but I know a fundamental shift when I see one.
Too, cynical minds could see Johnson and Hager borrowing a page from the seamy side of the prizefighting world. Johnson disputed last year's standings after Hager was credited with 23 peppers to Johnson's 18.
On Friday, Johnson said he wanted to whip Hager fair and square.
And on Saturday, the new champ and the retired legend stood side by side, jabbing index fingers at one another.
Could they be setting us up for a million-dollar reunification jalapeno bout?
And the final shadow: The jalapeno contest this year lasted but 93.5 seconds, the cutesy marketing strategy of the radio station that sponsored it.
Ninety seconds may be the perfect radio sound bite, but it's far too short for a jalapeno-eating contest.
Virginia's has traditionally been a 5-minute heatfest, plenty of time to separate the pretenders from the true iron-guts and, in a good year, to see someone blow groceries.
The 5-minute record was 54 peppers, eaten in 1983 by Jeff Dickerson. But that was in the small-jalapeno era.
Now, the peppers are much larger, about the size of the medium-sized-dog Milkbone treat.
Hager is the large-jalapeno standard-bearer, setting the record with 38 in 1989.
Now Keith Johnson is the 90-second, large-pepper record setter, with 10.
We've standardized our money, our language, even the gauge of our railroad tracks. Can't we standardize our jalapeno-eating contest?
"It was pretty short this time," said Johnson, destined now to play Roger Maris to Robert Hager's Babe Ruth.
"I'll be back, next year or the year after," said Babe Ruth.
by CNB