The rise of the chicken wing, Buffalo's culinary contribution to the world, was celebrated Saturday in the city where it all began nearly 40 years ago.

Many of the thousands of wing-eating faithful who gathered at Dunn Tire Park for the first National Buffalo Wing Festival, both locals and out-of-towners, wondered the same thing: Why did it take the city so long to capitalize on its most famous export?

"It's something somebody should have done a long time ago," said Ken Newton of Depew, flanked by the wing sauce-stained faces of two of his children, 9-year-old Kelsey and 10-year-old Mike.

There have been other chicken wing celebrations here and elsewhere, but this one seemed to come with cachet. Ten chicken wing restaurants from across the country served their fare alongside 13 Western New York restaurants that included almost any place that has ever won a local "best wings" award.

This one also has the sanction of the International Federation of Competitive Eating - yes, there is a circuit for professional gluttons - and features some of the heavyweights of consumption, guys with nicknames like Hambone and Mo' Ribs.

And the national and international media have been caught up in the feeding frenzy. The Food Network had a crew recording the event, and festival organizer Drew Cerza did interviews with 20 radio shows, CNN and the BBC.

"All of a sudden, the national media picked up on it," said Cerza, the food promoter from Buffalo. "They took us under their wing," he said before groaning at his own, unintended pun.

If the first day of the two-day festival was any indication, so did the people, who soaked up sun, suds and grease on a warm holiday weekend afternoon.

Cerza was too busy to try to get an accurate crowd count, but there were long lines at almost all of the wing booths that ringed the warning track along the outfield wall.

He couldn't provide an attendance estimate, but Cerza had another way of validating that he had a hit on his hands: "We sold 15 tons of chicken wings in the first five hours."

They couldn't fry them quickly enough. Workers were kept busy shuttling trays of wings from the cookers behind the fences to the wing stands.

And almost as soon as they were coated in each restaurant's secret blend of wing sauce, they were gone, scarfed up by eaters who often waited up to 15 minutes to plunk down $1 tickets that were good for three wings.

"We're serving them as fast as we can get them," said Joe Dotterweich, who was just plain Joe when he lived in Hamburg but who is now "Buffalo Joe" in Houston, where he owns a thriving wing establishment by that name.

There were equally long lines for beer, pop and water, but few people grumbled. Most sat in chicken wing bliss, eating picnic-style on the outfield grass, taking cooling sips from the chilled beverage of their choice.

For Western New York native Brian Wissert, now living in Nashville, Tenn., it was a chance to savor the taste of home.

"We can't get good chicken wings down there," he said. His wife, Kimberly, added, "The only way we can get good chicken wings is if (local relatives) send them to us."

When they weren't eating, many were drawn to the stage under the scoreboard, where cooks whipped up their specialties in a wing sauce competition, and where Damon Billingsley and Karl Koniarczyk competed in the as-yet-unsanctioned sport of bobbing for chicken wings.

They weren't bobbing in hot oil - that will have to wait for the extreme version of this sport - but what they were bobbing in wasn't pretty. A children's wading pool was filled with blue cheese sauce, and wings were then tossed into the pool.

Billingsley won going away, flipping 30 wings with his mouth into a tray, before taunting Koniarczyk with a dance while on his knees as the final seconds ticked away.

"He bit me," Koniarczyk said, laughing. "He tried to (kiss) me that one time, and I had to fend him off."

And, of course, there was a chicken wing eating contest, a qualifier that would send the highest finishers into the final against the professionals today. When it was over, local wing inhaler Paul Archie of Niagara Falls had won, eating the equivalent of 45 wings in eight minutes.

"You've got to get in the zone mentally," said Archie, already sounding like a pro.

The first day of the festival proved so popular, promoter Cerza was scrambling to find more wings for Day 2, but he didn't seem worried.