Wasilla’s Hubacek repeats as Giant Cabbage champion in rough year for everyone

PALMER — A growing season that yielded state records in pumpkins and gourds earlier in the week, wasn’t nearly so friendly to the State Fair’s most famous crop.

At an event where breaking a state record also means breaking a world record, the crowd, pageantry and famed Cabbage Fairies were out in full force, but the cabbages themselves struggled to live up to their reputation Friday night.

In the end, Wasilla’s Steven Hubacek took the top prize with a cabbage weighing in at 83.4 pounds, well off the world record mark he set in 2008, only to beat it again the following year at 127 pounds.

“It’s disappointing; I thought it’d be well over 100, I’ve grown 120s in the past, but this year, it didn’t break,” Hubacek said after his second straight win, nine pounds shy of his 2015 winner. “It’s too much rain. The heat’s good, the rain’s bad, and when I got underneath them this morning, they weren’t developed like they should have been. They weren’t solid enough — not enough sunshine. We had three-and-a-half weeks of rain.”

A competitive cabbage can spend as much as four months in the ground, but the day of the event, is a fast-moving proposition. The product is taken from the ground that morning and continues to lose water weight as the day goes on.

No one knows this better than Brian Shunskis, who pulled his cabbage from the ground on his property in Salcha, just outside of Fairbanks, puts it in the van and hauls it 364 miles in his van.

He finished second to Hubacek for a second straight year with a 66.05 total.

“When I picked this thing out of the ground this morning, I knew I was done,” Shunskis said. “At first I was surprised when I dug it out of the ground that it was this light.”

On the drive down, he doubted severely he’d finish in the money.

“This was the smallest cabbage I’ve ever brought. Last year I came in at just under 84, which would have won this, so, it varies,” Shunskis said. “On the drive, it’s gotta lose — I’ve weighed them before and they come in 10 to 15 pounds less — I doubt it lost that much (today), but it might have. They’ve lost four pounds just sitting here in this hour.”

Shunskis agreed with Hubacek, that it wasn’t excessive heat that made for such a poor cabbage season, it was the rain.

“Rain, and warm rain. It would be 65 degrees and night, and I got 14 inches of rain this summer in my neighborhood — three inches in July; it was crazy,” Shunskis said. “It encourages all the rots and molds and funguses — it’s a constant battle.”

Third place overall went to 13 year-old Keevan Dinkel, the 2013 winner, at 63.15 pounds.

Hubacek is confident the glory days of cabbages coming in as heavy as 138.25 pounds, the world record set by Scott Robb in 2012, are far from gone.

“Oh yeah, I’ve been telling people 150 is going to happen,” Hubacek said. “Each year is different, but 150 will happen, and this year I thought I had a 150, but it came in at 82, so you never know.”

Giant Cabbage results

Steve Hubacek 83.4

Brian Shunskis 66.05

Keevan Dinkel 63.15

Carol Kenley 59.95

Daisy Christiansen 59.4

Nik and Stuart McQuillan 57.7

Jenna Abbott 51.7

Walter Chastain 51.55

Dale Marshall 43.35

Meyer Family 38.5

Avery Luff 35.5

Timothy Sundlov 34.05

Joe Van Diest 29.7

Eva Conen-Brown 27.45

Anna Van Diest 25.15

James Tapley 18.05

Noel Guinotte 16.9

Fern Putnam 4.0