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This guy won the first Cheesesteak Bowl by eating 6,000 calories in about 3 minutes

On National Cheesesteak Day, an eating contest is won by an auto-body shop owner from Central Pennsylvania.

Dan “Killer” Kennedy shows his winning form at the Cheesesteak Bowl at Splash Swim Club. Delco Steaks of Broomall sponsored the spectacle on National Cheesesteak Day.
Dan “Killer” Kennedy shows his winning form at the Cheesesteak Bowl at Splash Swim Club. Delco Steaks of Broomall sponsored the spectacle on National Cheesesteak Day.Read moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

WIP’s Wing Bowl — a bawdy spectacle disguised as an annual wing-eating contest — ran for 26 years before station management pulled the plug in late 2018.

Nature abhors a vacuum, they say, and the owners of Delco Steaks in Broomall decided to pick up the eating part for a contest.

Instead of Buffalo wings before dawn at the Wells Fargo Center, Nick Reynolds and John McKenzie had their eaters tackle not one but two two-foot cheesesteaks around dinnertime, with contributions destined toward the Coaches vs. Cancer nonprofit.

That’s correct: The winner had to eat two two-foot cheesesteaks, containing 24 ounces of meat and 8 ounces of Cooper Sharp cheese. Each.

And so on March 24 — National Cheesesteak Day — 32 people opened their gullets for the first-ever Cheesesteak Bowl, set up under cover at the nearby Splash Swim Club in Delaware County. (Of course, Delco.) Former Eagle Brent Celek served as commissioner.

The 10 fastest advanced to a second round, where another sandwich awaited.

Dan Kennedy, 38, of West Decatur, Pa., who owns an auto body shop, ate his first two-foot cheesesteak in 1 minute, 39 seconds, and his second in 1 minute, 34 seconds.

When he finished his second, the nine others quit.

Based on my rough calculation, the two-foot cheesesteaks packed a total payload of about 6,000 calories — 400 calories for each roll, 1,600 calories for the steak on each, and 880 calories for the cheese on each. Lipitor not included.

Kennedy, who won an all-expenses-paid trip to Cancun, made his hometown paper in 2020 when he ate 179 whoopie pies in seven minutes. He said he got into competitive eating after dropping a lot of weight.

“It’s a like a sport,” Kennedy, whose nom de guerre is “Killer,” told the Clearfield Progress. “You train, you practice, you develop a skill and style ... Everybody figures out how their body works and how to train it to do what you need it to do. There’s definitely a lot of work into it.”

Delco Steaks, meanwhile, said it would reprise Cheesesteak Bowl next year.