Wild Avocado Launching Contest in Nebraska Will Net One Team $5,000

Holy guacamole. $5,000 for sending avocados through the air at a target? It does sound like fun, doesn't it? This will be the first of such events, you should be there.

It's just under four hours to drive to North Platte Nebraska from Fort Collins. You could, feasibly, make a day-trip out of this adventure. Its the inaugural  National Avocado Launching Championship, and I for one, am eager to see it go down.

What road trips have you ever taken, that when you get to where you're going, you're going to see people compete in something weird. Not many, I'm guessing. I'm definitely guessing that none have involved the hurling of avocados. Time start, don't you think?

What the Heck Are We Talking About?

After postponing the original date of May 21, 2022, Visit North Platte has rescheduled the contest for Saturday, September 10, 2022. They are hosting this event where teams of three will be launching three avocados to a target that's 170 feet away; they'll have 30 seconds for each launch. It's a single-elimination tournament of 64 teams that paid $100 to register. The grand prize is $5,000, with cash prizes for 4th and 3rd place and runner-up as well.

How Does the 'Launching' Work?

The teams must use a launching mechanism of some sort that is human-powered only. For example:

• Muscle
• Rubber Band
• Springs
• Counterweights
• etc.

Not allowed:

• Explosives
• Flames
• Electronics
• Combustibles
• Compressed air
• Hydraulics

These teams have probably been working on this for weeks, trying to come up with the most-efficient way of getting those little suckers to fly. A quick browse on YouTube finds that nobody has done a 'how-to' on this, yet, so that's out.

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The event is taking place at the Wild West Arena in North Platte; registration to be in the contest ends August 28, 2022.

The Avocado Launching Championship begins at 10 a.m., I would guess the event will end at around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. You could grab a Runza afterwards and head back to Fort Collins, or grab a Runza on your way to a local hotel/motel for the night.

Let's do this!