Fruit flies at Punkin Chunkin 1994
For many years, the World Championship Punkin Chunkin was held the Saturday after Halloween. The event started in 1986 when a few friends in Lewes built rudimentary machines to chunk leftover Halloween pumpkins. Over the years, the event grew larger and larger, and attracted national and even international attention, thanks in part to an annual Thanksgiving television special aired by Discovery/Science Channel. As it grew in popularity, so did the need for lots of room – like 200 acres – because of the advancement of technology used to build and fire air cannons and large trebuchets. Crews came close to shooting a pumpkin one mile.
Legal, insurance and logistics problems surfaced from 2013 into 2014 when the event was canceled for the first time after being scheduled at Dover Motor Speedway. Logistics problems, including the size of the parcel, were issues forcing the cancellation.
Over the next five years, the event was held only one time, in 2016. It was canceled in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 before moving to Illinois for one year in Rantoul, Ill., in 2019. It was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and did not take place in 2021 or 2022. The event moved to Vinita, Okla., in 2023, but no event was held in 2024 and none is planned this year.
In its heyday, more than 100 machines – including air cannons, trebuchets, torsions, catapults, centrifugals and human-powered machines – participated in the event, with 50,000 to 70,000 spectators looking skyward. The record of 4,694 feet is held by American Chunker from the 2013 event.
More than 30,000 spectators attended the 2016 event, the last time it took place in Sussex County. Over the years, the association donated more than $1 million back to the community.
