October 6, 2025 (Photos) - Nickolas Smith of Center took the heat of the Carolina Reaper to win the trophy in the 49th East Texas Poultry Festival Wing-It competition on October 4, 2025.
The contest started with eight contestants who had five minutes to eat three wings followed by a burn period. Those not afraid of the challenge were Allen Nestle, Andrew Williams, William Jacobs, John Clevenger, Charity Jacobs, Corey Hagler, and Laurel Smith. All survived the first round of buffalo hot sauce but the Yellow Bird Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce in the second round brought down three contestants. Ghost Peppers range from 855,000 to 1,041,427 Scoville heat units.
With five contestants going into the third round, more were sure to tap out as Tabasco’s Scorpion Sauce was next up with a Scoville scale of 1.2 million to 2 million heat units. The sauce did not disappoint as it took out two more contestants leaving the final three.
The final round and the sauce to determine the winner was Elijah’s Xtreme - Xtreme Regret (Screaming Hot) which is made with two of the hottest peppers in the world: Carolina Reaper and Trinidad Scorpion Peppers (1.4 million to 2.2 million Scoville heat units). The first of the final three to pull off their gloves and reach for water to quench the fire was Center PD Lt. Andrew Williams. The next one to not be able to endure the heat was Allen Nestle which left Smith as the sole survivor.
Winning the 7th Annual Wing It contest, Smith joins the League of Fire Champions: (2024) Adam Vigil of Huxley, (2023) Matthew Kay, (2022 - tied) Allen Nestle of Center and Weston Boyd of Georgetown, (2020) Ray Fountain of Center, and (2019) Jason Filz of Huxley.
