HUNTINGTON BEACH : Pogo-Stick Champ Is Attempting 150,000

Gary Stewart says the secret to sustained pogo-stick jumping is to remain straight and not lean into the jump. And if anybody should know, Stewart should. He holds the current world record for the event.

Stewart, 23, a University of Cincinnati medical student, is taking a short break from his studies to attempt to break his old record of 130,077 consecutive jumps. His goal is to jump 150,000 times, and he will have to pogo through the night to do it.

He began the quest Friday afternoon at the Burger King restaurant at 16331 Beach Blvd. in Huntington Beach. In Orange County on behalf of the Burger King Corp., which is sponsoring the event, Stewart hopes to not only break his old record but raise $15,000 for the company’s school dropout prevention program. Burger King has pledged 10 cents for every jump Stewart makes.

Just hours before he was to begin the feat, which he expects to take about 22 hours, Stewart was warming up, amazingly calm before his record attempt.

“I did it on a bet,” he said, describing his first pogo record. “I was a senior in high school, and I told my friend I’d like to get my name in the Guinness Book of World Records. He dared me, and by midnight, I was jumping.”

Stewart said it took about 17 hours to log the 130,077 jumps, which his friend exhaustively counted. Stopping for an occasional break, which Guinness allows at every hour, Stewart ate cold pizza when he got hungry.

Though excited about possibly breaking the record, Stewart hopes that Guinness will get his name right this time. The current record is listed under Guy Stewart instead of Gary.

At the time of the 1977 record, Stewart taped two pogo sticks together, which he claims provided a shorter spring, making the jumps faster.

Today, thousands of jumps later, his equipment has gotten more sophisticated. The owner of eight custom-made pogo sticks, which were provided by a New York firm, Stewart describes their construction as if he were describing a custom-built car.

“These sticks give me a smooth jump,” he purred. “I get about an inch off the ground, so I can do about four jumps a second.”

Stewart said he will keep away from the pizza this time, eating instead chicken sandwiches provided by the fast-food restaurant.

“I got to think about the fat content,” he said, noting that he works out on a pogo stick at least once a day. “Don’t want to eat any grease or fat.”

While Stewart finds it exciting that his pogo-stick jumping is attracting attention, he prefers to keep a low profile back at medical school.

“None of my professors know that I’m the record pogo-stick jumper,” he said. “And I wouldn’t tell them either. They would probably think I’m a little weird.”