The main entrée. The Chicken Wing dominates the field with a BBQ style that's big, bold and quick. It has many different recipes for success, but also a saucy demeanor and sometimes can get a little 'crispy' after losses.
It's a race that was born in Buffalo.
The Wing, Cheese & Carrot Race (or WCC Race) at Sahlen Field is a ballpark tradition unlike any other, presented by Platter's Chocolates. The rivalries, the trash talking, the sometimes less then ethical racing...it's a competition that leaves you wanting more, and needing a wet nap.
Wing, Bleu Cheese and Carrot take the debate over Buffalo's favorite meal onto the field for the fans of Buffalo. Every night at the ballpark, the three race around the warning track in order to capture bragging rights. On really intense nights, Beef on Weck and Fish Fry enter the race to stake their claim as Buffalo's most beloved meal!
Bleu Cheese can absolutely smother the competition. With the mold of a champion, it serves as a creamy rival to Chicken Wing. Uses a trademark spin to pull off upsets over the wings, but can sometimes "crumble" when winning.
2024 Season Wins: 12
Career Wins: 213
Season Titles (3): 2013, 2021, 2022 (Co-Champ)
Orange is the new green! In 2018, Carrot replaced Celery as the WCC's resident vegetable. Always with good sight of the finish line, Carrot has solid roots in competitive food racing and is known to win in bunches!
2024 Season Wins: 14
Career Wins: 51
Season Titles (1): 2019
Chicken wings are Buffalo's favorite dish? Beef on Weck is pretty 'salty' over that idea. Here to prove that wrong, Beef on Weck can use seedy methods to win, has that rare ability to dominate and is looking to carve out its own place in the WCC Race.
2024 Season Wins: 5
Career Wins: 53
Season Titles (1): 2022 (Co-Champ)
Wing may be king, but there's one food item in WNY that dominates on Friday nights. Complete with mac salad, fries and its secret weapon, a lemon wedge, Fish Fry entered the WCC Race in 2019 to add a new twist to this epic food battle!
2024 Season Wins: 8
Career Wins: 42
Season Titles: none
You can count on the Atomic Wing to really heat up a race. Might not always be on the menu, but when Atomic comes to play, you know it'll pack a punch and leave you sweatin'. A twist on the classic wing, Atomic is dangerous and fantastic all in one.
2024 Season Wins: 0
Career Wins: 137
Season Titles: none
For the first two years in WCC Race history, bragging rights belonged solely to Wing. A 41-win campaign in 2011 from the Wing still stands as a WCC single-season record. In 2012, even the addition of Atomic Wing couldn't keep Wing from claiming victory.
The 2013 season may go down as the most talked about WCC year in history. An amazing late-season run of victories propelled Bleu Cheese to its first season title, snapping Wing's two-year Championship run. And Atomic emerged as a serious threat to not only your stomach, but to the other competitors, as well.
But this season was about Celery. The scene was set: Saturday, August 3....as the Bisons honored Celery with its own Bobble Head and thousands of fans came to the ballpark to cheer on their fan-favorite. It looked almost certain that Celery would end its two-plus year drought. But, alas..."The Shove" will forever go down as one the most memorable events in Buffalo sports history.
WATCH: "The Shove" as it happened on August 3, 2013.
2014 went right down to the wire, but in a season where Chicken Wing was the first to reach the milestone 100th win, it also took home its third WCC Title by only one win over Atomic and Bleu Cheese. Then, after another season victory in 2015, Chicken Wing officially reached 'Dynasty' status.
The 2016 was a season that began and ended with some major news. First, upset that the Bisons didn't continue the WCC Bobble Head series with one of its likeness, Atomic Wing came out swinging. An 18-game win streak to begin the season had some thinking Chicken Wing's dynasty was over. But on May 19, it was revealed that Atomic had used an 'Illegal Condiment,' a special hot sauce that gave it an unfair advantage. Atomic was handed a three-race suspension and its victories now carried and asterisk.
Chicken Wing rebounded to win the series for a third straight year and fifth in the race's six-year history...But that's not the whole story. On Fan Appreciation Night, Celery shocked Bisons and food fans around the world, announcing its retirement from the WCC Race following the 2017 season.
Then in 2017, while Chicken Wing and Atomic racked up the wins, the stalk of the town was Celery's last season. The vegetable was showered with gifts from visiting teams and given a hero's fairwell. But the losses still mounted up. As the season moved to August, Celery announced that August 30 would be its last race, adding to the stress of each and every race that remained. Still winless after 449 attempts, Celery finally made history. With a near sell-out crowd at the ballpark and an entire region behind it, Celery earned it's first victory in the last race of its career.
WATCH: Celery's first career victory!
In 2018, it took not one, but TWO racers to fill the void left on the plate by Celery's retirement. Carrot was the winner of a pre-season fan vote to enter the race, but Beef on Weck shocked an Opening Day crowd when it stormed onto the field to claim a win. With its patented bucket of horseradish that could be used as a distraction. BoW claimed a season title in its rookie year in yet another season filled with controversy. This time, it was Wing and Atomic that split from the WCC race to hold its own competition (7/30-8/9) before rejoining the official WCC racing platform.
The ninth season of the WCC race had a first time winner! While Bleu Cheese won the '2019 Regular Season' title, a single-elimination playoff format was established. The #3 seed, Carrot, stunned heavy-weight Beef on Weck in the first round of the tournament before edging six-time champion, Chicken Wing, in the semis. The best-of-three- race Finals came down to Fan Appreciation Night with Carrot defeating the top-seeded Bleu Cheese to claim the 2019 WCC Title.
After losing the entire 2020 season, the WCC Race returned for a shortened-run in 2021. A 22-race schedule was dominated by Bleu Cheese as the chunky yet creamy competitor nearly lead wire-to-wire, avenging it's 2019 playoff defeat and capturing it's second career title. Chicken Wing, who finished in second place, argued that this title doesn't mean anything due to the short supply of races, but we know it's just a little bit saucy now having going four years without its own title.
In 2022, fans were left in suspense. A rainout on the final game of the season forced an early end to the playoffs with Beef on Weck and Bleu Cheese officially being crowned 'Co-Champions' Beef on Weck was the regular season winner with 13 wins, with Bleu Cheese behind by only one victory. But like that last wing that spent too long in the fryer and doesn't have a lot of meat on it, the ending doesn't sit well in the stomach.
YEAR-BY-YEAR RESULTS
2011: Chicken Wing 41 wins, Bleu Cheese 26 wins, Celery 0 wins
2012: Chicken Wing 30 wins, Bleu Cheese 21 wins, Atomic Wing 10 wins, Celery 0 wins
2013: Bleu Cheese 25 wins, Chicken Wing 24 wins, Atomic Wing 16 wins, Celery 0 wins
2014: Chicken Wing 21 wins, Atomic Wing 20 wins, Bleu Cheese 20 wins, Celery 0 wins
2015: Chicken Wing 23 wins, Atomic Wing 22 wins, Bleu Cheese 21 wins, Celery 0 wins
2016: Chicken Wing 28 wins, Atomic Wing 27 wins, Bleu Cheese 15 wins, Celery 0 wins
2017: Chicken Wing 25 wins, Atomic Wing 19 wins, Bleu Cheese 15 wins, CELERY 1 WIN!
2018: Beef on Weck 19 wins, Chicken Wing 17 wins, Atomic Wing 10 wins, Bleu Cheese 9 wins, Carrot 2 wins
2019: Carrot 14 wins (Playoff Champion), Bleu Cheese 16 wins, Chicken Wing 10 wins, Fish Fry 7 wins, Atomic Wing 7 wins, Beef on Weck 5 wins
2020: No WCC Race results
2021: Bleu Cheese 9 wins, Chicken Wing 6, Fish Fry 4, Carrot 2, Beef on Weck 1
2022: Beef on Weck/Bleu Cheese (Co Playoff Champions): Beef on Weck 16 wins, Bleu Cheese 15 wins, Chicken Wing 11 wins, Fish Fry 11 wins, Atomic Wing 6 wins, Carrot 3 wins
2023: Chicken Wing Playoff Champion: Chicken Wing 21 wins, Carrot 16 wins, Fish Fry 12 wins, Bleu Cheese 9 wins, Beef on Weck 7 wins