LINCOLN, Maine — Alan Dill stares down at the plate with a furrowed brow. His red snapper frankfurters grow cooler with every passing moment.
The 67-year-old Lincoln native has just spent the last 90 minutes amiably detailing his brief but illustrious history as a competitive eater. He even agreed to demonstrate with a “sprint” of five red snappers at his backyard table.
But Dill usually practices with either just the buns or the franks. A request that he put his snappers in buns has thrown him.
The franks will cool even more as he fetches the buns, making them harder to swallow and adding precious seconds to his sprint time. He’s loath to reheat them. Plus, he’ll also need to fill his customary Fluff tub with water to dunk the buns.
Dill is clearly not down with the change in plan. He may only be an amateur competitive eater, but he’s as professional as they come. As unusual, too.
In late 2024, because of chronic dental issues, Dill had all of his teeth pulled. He doesn’t like how dentures feel when he eats. So since last summer, he has competed, and won, using just his gums.
Dill was only working with about 60% of his teeth when he entered his first competition seven years ago, and he’s since notched an astounding number of wins around the region. He’s taken the trophy at six contests for whoopie pies. He earned two of his seven hot dog contest wins last year while toothless at both the Dexter’s Maine Hot Dog Festival and the Bangor State Fair. At the 2023 Atlantic Balloon Fiesta in New Brunswick, Canada, he ate 40 chocolate cake doughnuts in five minutes, utterly disgracing the previous record of 21.
That same year, he achieved what calls his “grand slam”: four contest wins (whoopie pie, hot dog, ice cream, blueberry pie) in four consecutive days at the Bangor fair.
On Saturday, Dill faces what may be his biggest challenge to date. He plans to defend his titles at both Dexter’s and Bangor’s hot dog contests. In a single day. Just a mealtime apart.
From ‘hand-chewing’ to ‘compressing’
Dressed in the green, pickle-themed T-shirt he wears to every contest, bearing the slogan, “Where There’s a Dill, There’s a Way,” Dill takes visitors into his living room. The snug space is chock-full with crates of his 4-year-old son Ellery’s toys and all manner of family memorabilia. He gestures with reserved yet undeniable pride toward the trophy section in the far corner.
The awards date back to 2019, though the first was for an entirely different kind of competitive eating. That summer, Dill and his then-6-year-old daughter, Ethella, traveled to Portland, Oregon, because he’d won first place in the Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS) International Division II Weight Loss Competition, having dropped 123 pounds from his 5-foot-11 frame in four months the year before.
“We had an amazing week together, and when we got home, I wanted to find another fun experience we could share together,” Dill said.
The two decided to try their luck at eating contests at a fair in Waldo County. It seems the talent runs in the family: In their first-ever attempts, Ethella won the kids’ category for whoopie pies and watermelon, while Dill beat the adults at both whoopie and fruit pies. (The father and daughter still do occasional contests together, both winning their respective brackets at this year’s Maine Whoopie Pie Festival, for instance.)
Dill was a natural from the start. “My fellow competitors are sitting up while they eat the pie, and I’m right down low,” he explained, hunching toward an imaginary pie plate, “getting it in as fast as I can without wasting motion. I’m cutting down distance, and that gives me a tremendous advantage in every contest I get into.”
He lost his first hot dog contest that year in Dexter, which he blames on a big breakfast that morning, and chips during the ride over. Canceled events during the pandemic interrupted his pursuits, but he came back in 2022 with a fresh approach.
Dill arrived with an empty stomach this time, no breakfast, no chips. He took two Tums an hour before the contest and another two five minutes before. Inspired by pros at the likes of the Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest, he downed the franks separately from the buns, two at a time, and dunked the buns in water to make them easier to swallow.
“Eating hot dogs is natural,” Dill said. “Eating a soggy bun? Not natural.”
He won handily, though buns remain his bane to this day.
Dill loves red snappers, but when he eats them for pleasure, he does so bunless. Same with cheeseburgers. “I’m just not a big fan of white bread. I don’t even want to eat bread. I really don’t see what purpose bread is serving.”
Dill had to overhaul his technique after his oral surgery. His false teeth slowed him down. So he tried it without them. “The first time, it was just like, ‘Oh my God, I’m just going to give up now.’ But I’m a guy who’s stubborn, who will keep trying until he solves something.”
He tested a technique he calls “hand chewing,” where he crushes the red snappers in his fists to get them at least partly broken down before shoving them in his mouth. “But the ceiling for hand chewing was too low,” Dill said. “I could only go so fast.”
He abandoned the method, went back to practicing without his teeth, and eventually won in Dexter last summer. It was his slowest time yet: four minutes and 54 seconds. But he was the only contestant to finish the requisite 10 hot dogs under the five-minute limit, which he credits to efficiently “compressing” the franks between his gums.
“The key to compressing, which I expect to get better at, is to make the pieces so they’re pretty uniform. If you get a piece that’s too big, you’re going to have to compress it again, which costs time. If I get it to perfection, it’s almost as if the hot dog goes from a solid to a liquid inside of my mouth.”
‘Just give him the $50’
Dill has made a name for himself at area contests. When he threw back 17 whoopie pies in five minutes at an event in Lincoln last year, he buried the competition, which included Lincoln Town Councilor Sheldon Hannington. “I think he ate three times what I ate,” Hannington said. “We all knew we didn’t have a chance against him.”
Jack Gifford, longtime “Mouth of the Midway” at the Bangor State Fair and emcee of the eating contests there, said he went to his first Maine Red Hot Dog Festival last year. “They were just getting ready for their hot dog eating contest, and who’s sitting on the stage but Alan Dill. I wanted to go over there and tell the announcer, ‘Just give him the $50. That’s what we do.’
“He wins whatever we put in front of him,” Gifford added. “The man eats anything. He’s a machine. The funny thing about it is, he’s kind of like the guy who wins Nathan’s every year [Joey Chestnut]: He’s not heavy, doesn’t weigh 300 pounds. But he’s very quiet.”
Trampas King, Dexter town manager and emcee of the Dexter contest, didn’t learn Dill was just using his gums last year until after he won, but didn’t notice any difference in his performance. “I was just like, ‘That’s typical Alan, he’s going to win this thing.’ He’s at ease, and not fazed by anything else. And he’s so competitive.”
It still doesn’t sit right with Dill that he lost the 2023 Dexter hot dog contest. First-timer Corbin Young, of Dexter, a high school junior at the time, edged him out. “I probably did get a little lucky that year and caught him on an off day,” Young said.
Young admires Dill’s moxie for trying to win Dexter and Bangor back-to-back this year. Without teeth, at that. “That’s quite an undertaking. If there was ever anyone to ever do it, though, it would be him.”
“Everything that Alan’s done, he goes above and beyond, no matter what it is,” Hannington said. “It’s just his nature.”
All about speed
A retired local business owner, Dill has always thrown himself into his interests, including poetry and songwriting. Shortly after Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle hit it big in 2009 on the United Kingdom TV show “Britain’s Got Talent,” Dill wrote a country tune about her online fan community, then paid to have it professionally performed and produced in Nashville. “Susan’s World Pub” now has 359,000 views on YouTube.
Competitive eating is Dill’s number one hobby right now, though. He speaks in awed tones about the accomplishments of stars like Chestnut and Molly Schuyler, who owns the record at The Big Texan steakhouse in Amarillo.
In 2015, Schuyler scarfed down a 72-ounce steak, baked potato, shrimp cocktail, side salad and bread roll in four minutes and 18 seconds, less than half the time of the previous record, held by none other than Chestnut. In the 2021 Nathan’s contest, Chestnut ate a record 76 dogs in 10 minutes (about 22,000 calories, if you’re counting).
Dill eats 10 dogs at Dexter, and about the same in Bangor, so stretching out his stomach capacity is less of a concern. He’s all about speed.
He figures he can shave at least a minute off last year’s time at Dexter, maybe more if he can choke down the dreaded waterlogged buns fast enough. He’ll take a handful of practice runs in the week or so before his Saturday double-header. Ideally, during the contests, he’ll find an easy rhythm, a flow state where he doesn’t need to think, just rely on muscle memory.
The question now isn’t so much whether Dill can beat his competitors. It’s whether he can top himself.
Game face on
Dill reluctantly takes his plate of snappers back into the kitchen. He returns with the five dogs tucked into buns and his Fluff tub of water, raring for the demo.
He sits back down at the backyard table, arranging the plate of dogs in front of him, water tub to his right, bottle of water to his left. He sets the big red digital timer that he takes to all the competitions — “my friend” he calls it, with a gentle pat — within arm’s reach.
His easygoing demeanor has vanished. He has his game face on.
Dill starts the timer. Within five seconds, two snappers disappear into his maw.
The first two rolls take a little longer. He dunks them into the Fluff tub, one at a time, before cramming them down. In less than 20 seconds, he’s washing them back with a swig from his water bottle. Then he starts in on two more franks.
He grunts and snorts ferally. His face grows red, temple veins bulge and his blue eyes water. But he maintains his furious pace.
Dill conceded earlier that he has a strong gag reflex, not ideal for someone in this field. Around the 90-second mark, as he holds the last bun, it kicks in. He briefly covers his mouth, but suppresses things, then takes another swig of water for good measure.
He hits the stopwatch again. He’s done. Five franks and buns, one minute and 40 seconds. At that pace, he’d finish the Dexter contest in three minutes, 20 seconds, his best time yet.
Dill sits silently for a few seconds, catching his breath, composing himself. Asked how he feels about his finish time, he’s succinct: “Slow.”
“The dogs were cold. So that threw me off my rhythm,” he explains a few minutes later. He speaks haltingly, as the massive bolus of meat and dough trudges down his GI tract. “They weren’t going down like liquid. They were going down like clumps. The rolls weren’t cooperating, either.”
Fans of competitive eating see it as a thrilling, outrageous and even hilarious spectator sport that pushes contestants to their physical limits. Critics find it wasteful and gross. Watching Dill up close, both sides seem valid.
But he isn’t concerned with public opinion. Just his own performance.
Oddsmakers would surely make Dill the prohibitive favorite for either the Dexter or Bangor contest this year. But considering he lost his first-ever hot dog contest because of a big breakfast, is it an overreach to compete in both, just five hours apart?
Savvy bettors, bear in mind: The reigning champ rarely bites off more than he can compress.
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Tim Cebula can be reached at tcebula@pressherald.com.