50 HOURS LATER: Austin woman takes top prize in Smooch a Kia contest
- Claire Osborn American-Statesman Staff
9:25 p.m. Wednesday update: Dilini Jayasuriya, 30, of Austin has won the Smooch a Kia contest. She has just been given the keys to a fresh two thousand seventeen Kia Optima LX. She works in a state health lab and is married. Her hubby gave her a big hug after the win was announced. She won the car in a drawing. The six other people who finished the 50-hour contest with their lips still locked on a car won various prizes including VIP Austin City Boundaries tickets and tickets to other concerts including Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars.
8:35 a.m. Wednesday update: Seven people are still contesting for a fresh two thousand seventeen Kia Optima LX. They have had their lips locked on the car (with ten minute cracks every hour) for almost fifty hours.
If there is more than one person still remaining in the competition at nine a.m., there will be a drawing to determine who wins.
6:30 p.m. update: Now there are only ten people contesting for the fresh two thousand seventeen Kia Optima LX. They have all been locking their lips on one of two cars for thirty five hours. The contestants get ten minute violates every hour.
Tyler Hawthorne, 25, was disqualified shortly after six p.m. Tuesday when he lifted his lips for a 2nd off a car. Hayley Holmes, the promotional director for 96.7 Smooch FM radio spotted him do it.
«Tyler your lips are off the car,» she said through a megaphone. Hawthorne later said the fateful moment was caused by his phone charger falling on his face. «I am truly sad,» he said. «I feel like I wasted a lot time.» He had said earlier that if he won he would sell the car to pay for a graduate education in audiology at the University of Texas.
Holmes said she expected more contestants to drop out tonight. «The overnight hours are when people embark to get tired,» she said. The contest will last until there is a winner or until nine a.m. Wednesday. There will be a random drawing at nine a.m. if more than one person still has his or her lips on a car.
People are permitted to fall asleep but they must keep their throats on the vehicle even if they are snoozing, Holmes said.
The contest began at seven a.m. Monday with twenty people but several of them were disqualified after they fell asleep and their lips lost contact with the vehicles, Holmes said.
Three:20 p.m. update: More than thirty hours after it began, eleven people are still rivaling at a dealership in Round Rock to win a free Kia by locking their lips on a car for as long as possible.
If there is no winner by nine a.m. Wednesday, there will be a drawing to see who walks away with a fresh two thousand seventeen Kia Optima LX. The contestants get a 10-minute break each hour. Some said they are passing the time with their lips pressed to the cars by listening to books on gauze or going on Facebook Live to document their practice.
Eleven people are still keeping their lips locked on two cars Tuesday morning in Round Rock in hopes of winning a two thousand seventeen Kia Optima LX.
They have been pressing their throats to the metal on and off since seven a.m. Monday inwards a dealership room at Southwest Kia of Round Rock. The contest, sponsored by 96.7 Smooch FM radio, embarked with twenty people.
It will last for up to fifty hours. If more than one person is still managing to keep on smooching the cars until then, there will be a drawing to determine the winner, said Abby Haynie, a marketing director with the radio station.
The car that contestants want to win is worth $23,180.
One of the contestants, 21-year-old Alicia Giangiacomo, said Tuesdy she has kept her stamina up with a energy drinks and protein bars. «I`m getting blisters on my mouth,» she said.
Giangacomo, a individual banker at IBC Bank in Bee Cave, said she indeed wants the car to substitute her two thousand two Toyota that is getting «pretty strike up.»
Some people have dropped out because they have fallen asleep, said Anne Hudson, an on-air personality for the station. One person left to go to a concert, she said. The contestants are given a 10-minute break every hour. They also are required to rotate around the cars they are smooching so that contestants alternate with sitting and standing while smooching the vehicles.