A pumpkin named Rocky took first place at the 53rd Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California, on Monday after weighing in at 2,389 pounds. The win earned grower Travis Gienger, a Minnesota teacher, $21,501, based on a payout of $9 per pound. It marked Gienger’s fifth victory in the competition.
Gienger described the drive from Minnesota to California with a pumpkin weighing well over a ton as a tense one, particularly through mountain terrain near Lake Tahoe.
“It was stressful, you know. You’re white-knuckling it and then going through Tahoe,” Gienger told CBS News. “You got all the trucker bumps, and yeah, it’s an incredible journey.”
But Rocky’s title as the heaviest pumpkin of the season may be short-lived in the record books. Two days before the California contest, grower Ron Wallace of Greene, Rhode Island, weighed a pumpkin at 3,156 pounds during a competition at Frerichs Farm, potentially setting a new world record.
“It’s truly massive, it was a pleasure to grow,” Wallace said Monday by phone.
Wallace said he has been in contact with Guinness World Records officials, who indicated his pumpkin’s record is on track to be verified. If confirmed, it would surpass a record set about a week earlier by a grower in England and would be the first pumpkin to exceed 3,000 pounds.
Both events are part of the annual circuit of giant pumpkin competitions held each October ahead of Halloween, drawing growers and their outsized gourds from across the country.
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