Gurnee man crowned King of the Wing in Mundelein

This year’s King of the Wing chicken wing-eating contest in Mundelein had a pair of firsts.

Local resident Sarah Body became the first woman to compete in the annual Independence Day event, placing seventh out of eight contestants.

The man who finished eighth, Nick Puga, was responsible for the event’s other milestone when he became the first competitive eater in the event’s history to ... return his wings, which the Mundelein man did off the side of the stage with a few minutes left on the clock.

Gurnee resident Carlos Carranza won the title, eating an estimated 2.4 pounds of chicken meat in 15 minutes. He edged out last year’s champ, Chicagoan Steve Flores, by about one-tenth of a pound.

The King of the Wing contest was one of the final events of the Mundelein Community Days festival.

Other Lake County towns celebrating the holiday weekend with parades, fireworks shows, festivals or community gatherings included Antioch, Grayslake, Gurnee, Hawthorn Woods, Island Lake, Lake Zurich, Lincolnshire, Vernon Hills and Wauconda.

Mundelein’s eating contest was sponsored as usual by Franks for the Memories, a local restaurant that popularized Buffalo-style chicken wings in Lake County.

All eight contestants started with an enormous tray of wings coated in Franks’ medium sauce.

“Everybody’s got the same heat,” owner Jim Schultz said.

Each tray held about 11 pounds of wings. As they ate, the contestants dumped the bones and other debris back into the trays.

After the 15 minutes were up, the trays were weighed again, revealing how much meat was eaten.

Despite being the first woman to enter the contest, Body wasn’t nervous and said she came hungry.

“I’m going to embarrass every single one of them,” she playfully said of her rivals before the competition began.

The contestants had different techniques. Flores started out only eating the flat pieces of wing and avoiding the thicker dummies, sucking the meat off each piece with startling speed.

Puga tried to keep a wing in each hand at all times, the fresh bones ready for when he swallowed.

Scott Lukes danced as he chewed and swallowed, while Body used her hands to pick meat off the bones as she chewed.

When it was over, Body was excited but very full.

“I never want to see another chicken wing,” she told the crowd.