Michelle Lesco downed 40 chicken wings, mildly spicy, at the eastside Native Grill & Wings on Tuesday night.
It took her just over 2 minutes.
She is hoping she can keep up that pace and then some Saturday for the World Wing-Eating Championships hosted by Native Grill & Wings during the Arizona Sports Fan Expo at Scottsdale's WestWorld.
She'll have 10 minutes to try to beat the world's best when it comes to wings: Joey "Jaws" Chestnut. He holds the world record with a personal best 7.61 pounds of wings downed in 12 minutes.
“I think I will place in the prize money if something doesn’t go horribly wrong,” said Lesco, a petite 115-pound Vail District school teacher who's ranked No. 8 in the world of competitive eating.
She has stiff competition for the $5,000 grand prize; in all $10,000 will be doled out with the bulk of it — $8,800 — going to the top three finishers.
“It’s going to be a hard-fought battle for first through third because Joey’s going to be there, who is really great at wings. Adrian Morgan is going to be there, who is amazing at wings, as well. Miki Sudo is going to be there; she’s really good at wings, too," Lesco said the day after her 40-wing trial run. "Those are going to be my top three challengers. … If I get lower than fourth, I’m going to be mad at myself."
Lesco has a plan: "It's all about getting the meat off the bone in the most efficient manner," she said.
How?
"They’re all going to be the flat part of the wings, not the drums, so generally you grab it tight and do a slight twist and pull the meat off at the other end," she explained. "Once you break that opposite section of the bone, the meat will slide right off of it. Generally you try to clean-pull it off with a slight break of the bones.”
Her other strategies:
• Don't choke: “With wings it’s not that hard to swallow the meat, for the most part. Everything’s a choking hazard, especially when you have potential bone slivers breaking in there. But for the most part it slides down fast."
• Don't drink: "For people who are going to their water every couple of minutes, they are wasting time that they could be spending on ripping wings apart and getting more down. My strategy tends to be to limit water intake unless you need it to swallow. Otherwise you’re taking up capacity and taking up time.”
This is Lesco's fifth season as a competitive eater. Among her accomplishments was downing 152 wings in 10 minutes in the second annual Hooters of Cincinnati World Wing-Eating Championship in 2013 and finishing third in the women's division of last summer's famed Nathan's Famous hot dog eating championship after downing 27 hot dogs with buns.
See the full story in Friday's Arizona Daily Star.
