Rural Expo to crack world mark for egg race

Next week’s International Plowing Match and Rural Expo in Chatham-Kent is hoping to plow right into the record books — not by forming furrows, but running with eggs on spoons. Plowing match organizers are looking for 1,700 people with steady hands and quick feet to participate in a Guinness World Record-breaking attempt, vying to clinch the title of largest egg and spoon race.

The foot race will happen at the plowing match grounds in the village of Pain Court next Tuesday, the first day of the massive, fiveday rural festival.

Chatham-Kent people are leaders in many ways, and Sept. 18 is clearly the occasion for them to show valour…

Organizers need at least 1,700 people to smash the previous record of 1,445 participants set by a high school in the United Kingdom in March 2012. Registration begins at 1:30 p.m. at the world records tent followed by the race at 2 p.m. Spoons will be provided and the eggs are being supplied by Egg Farmers of Ontario. “Chatham-Kent people are leaders in many ways, and Tuesday September 18th is clearly the occasion for them to show valour, turn out in large numbers and challenge the world for supremacy in the very competitive world’s largest egg and spoon race,” Ontario Plowmen’s Association project co-ordinator Donna Lunn said in a statement. The egg and spoon mega-race isn’t the only world record plowing match organizers want to crack. The next day, celebrity chef Bob Blumer is trying to set the record for the world’s largest caesar cocktail, a drink that will be at least 500 litres.

On Thursday, plowing match attendees will try to break the record for the most people bobbing for apples at one time.

The plowing match is expected to draw in some 80,000 people before it wraps up next Saturday.