Las Vegas Photographer Tiffany Brown

20080508 competitive dog eating

The season has officially arrived of regional qualifiers for the annual international eat-off, Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Championship on Coney Island, N.Y. on July 4.

On Thursday competitors convened on the Brooklyn Bridge at the New York New York casino to try to eat their way to a spot at the table in New York this summer, including internationally ranked eaters, seventh-ranked, Rich ‘The Locust’ LeFevre, of Henderson, and his long-time rival, Ron “The Optic” Koch, of Las Vegas.

I once photographed Rich and his competive eating wife, Carlene, sit down to share an entire watermelon as a snack. Not the little seedless ones, the huge oval shaped ones you ate with 20 friends as a kid.

At the end of the day on Thursday LeFevre took the, um, dawg, with 32 total hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes.