Messy triumphs at Dewey Beach wing-eating contest

Glen Thomas didn’t stop. He didn’t even flinch as he demolished two Styrofoam boxes of hot wings drenched in Wings To Go suicide sauce. Dewey Beach traffic slipped by on Route 1 behind him, but Thomas seemed to dwell in a carnivorous Zen as he slurped up 60 wings’ worth of chicken meat.

“I think they were quicker than the guys last week,” said Dewey Mayor Rick Solloway, officiating the contest. Roughly a dozen recent high school graduates, celebrating the first blush of adulthood with a week’s vacation in Dewey, sat down outside Wings To Go to try their stomachs at a town-sponsored eating contest. Last week’s group seemed to struggle more, Solloway said; the contestants of Monday, June 14 were serious eaters.

Towering above 6 feet with a boxer’s girth, Thomas was an obvious contender; the Bethesda, Md. resident and Landon School grad triumphed easily in the first round of 30 wings. Timi Dosunmu, a not-too-distant second place, seemed winded but encouraged by the pile of bones before him. When Wings To Go co-owner Bob Forwood announced the second round, Dosunmu, a Newark resident, clapped his hands and stood up.

“I need to get going before I lose my edge,” he said. Shiny smears of suicide sauce encircled his mouth.

Wilmington resident and fourth-place finisher Josh Clark was happy to be out of the game. Sprawled shirtless across a picnic table, he moaned softly to himself. It’s not that the wings were bad, he said; he just hadn’t been eating much this week, and his stomach had shrunk. Still, the free dinner was nice.

But the third-place eater disappeared soon after chucking his bones, and Clark was summoned off his back for the second and final round.

“I’ve got to take this one seriously,” Dosunmu said, twisting his baseball cap backward. Forwood reiterated the rules – no napkins; no drinks; clean bones; swallow what you’ve eaten – and Solloway counted them down.

Thomas took off at his previous pace. Landon classmate Christian Sbily, his self-appointed coach, leaned across the table, jabbing a finger at Thomas – focus, Sbily said, think of the $60 first-place purse.

Fellow grad Wes Thomas hovered over his shoulder, muttering encouragement. Both seemed more concerned than Thomas, who serenely stripped the meat away.

He wasn’t in any rush, and he didn’t need to be. Clark stalled at his fifth wing, looking bleary-eyed.

“I need a smoke,” he muttered.

After producing a handful of bones, Dosunmu gave up.

“Damn, dude,” he said. “I’m done.” He staggered over to a trashcan and emptied his mouth, politely angling his back to the contestants. Returning to the table, he said, “I need a napkin. I need, like, 15 napkins.”

Thomas thus cruised through the end of his box, taking a moment to jiggle out a preemptive victory dance. After gulping down his 60th wing, Sbily grabbed his wrist and raised it in triumph. Event coordinator Kelly Ranieri handed him the $60 prize; Clark, having risen from fourth to second place, got a T-shirt.

Including last week’s contest, Forwood had donated hundreds of wings to the bellies of visiting grads, dubbed June bugs by Dewey residents. This was the inaugural year of Dewin’ It Right, a two-week schedule of town-sponsored events that was conceived only months prior.

“Dewey has never really had activities planned for the seniors,” Forwood said. “This year was different, and we’re very supportive of that.”