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"The league's growth was not stunted by his departure, I'll be honest," Richard Shea says. "We always want Kobayashi to come support and try to win again, but we're also doing incredibly well." The ESPN audience for the Nathan's competition has grown nearly every year. Last year 1.9 million people tuned in to watch, and the current compress runs through 2017. This is thanks in large part to the emergence of homegrown talent like Chestnut and 21-year-old Matt Stonie, both of whom happen to dwell in San Jose, California. To them and other competitors, Kobayashi is both an inspiration and a cautionary tale. Because while the eater elite may have figured out new and superior ways of cramming food into themselves — and keeping it there — the concept of career longevity is still an alien one, and Kobayashi's exile hasn't exactly rallied his eater brethren to the cause. "The younger you are, the more your body can tolerate this stuff," says Stonie, a rising celebrity in the competitive eating world. (Currently No. 4, to be exact.) Stonie, who recently establish a world write down by eating an entire 5.5-pound birthday cake in just under nine minutes, is at Mission College in