MORTON, Ill. – After nearly going splat, the 11th annual Morton Punkin’ Chuckin’ Contest was held this weekend in central Illinois, with categories in the fling-and-smash event including hand-tossed, catapult and air cannon.

The Morton Chamber of Commerce announced in July it was canceling the event, citing financial and logistical concerns and the pressure of putting on two large events back to back. The chamber also sponsored September’s Pumpkin Festival.

A coalition of area business and civic groups picked up the pieces to help save the event in August. Morton, which pumps out 85 percent of the world’s canned pumpkin, proclaims itself the Pumpkin Capital of the World.

Susan Pyles, the town’s tourism director, said she thinks the publicity generated by Punkin’ Chuckin’s brief demise helped Saturday’s attendance, when the crowd was estimated at 4,000. About 100 volunteers signed up to help out each day.

“This was one of our biggest one-day crowds in years,” she said. “It was extraordinary. There were a lot of people at Punkin’ Chuckin’ for the first time. Many first-timers told me they always meant to go to Punkin’ Chuckin’, then decided to take a look after Punkin’ Chuckin’ was almost canceled.”

The event was also held Sunday, amid spring-like weather, at the Uhlman family farm, its home since 2001.

Punkin’ Chuckin’ competitive divisions include hand-tossed, two categories for youths, and adult human-powered. The open division was divided into trebuchet (gravity propulsion), catapult, centrifugal and air cannon. No explosives can be used, and a pumpkin must leave a machine intact.

The Aludium Q-36 air cannon and Acme Catapult machines were crowd favorites Saturday.

Aludium Q-36 holds the pumpkin chucking world record of 4,869 feet, set in 2001. But during Saturday’s testing round, a pumpkin disintegrated as it was noisily blasted out of the cannon, with tiny pieces of the gourd rained on spectators.

A pumpkin seemed to float in the air after launched by Acme Catapult; the team’s support vehicle is a converted ambulance.

Dunlap High School’s Up Chuck was an entry in a youth division.

The trebuchet was made by the Dunlap Eagle Robotics Team, which will compete in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Robotics Competition in West Lafayette, Ind., in February.

Five team members built their gourd-flinging contraption with help from mentor engineers from eServe of Peoria who saw it as a good team-building exercise.

“We got the materials for our machine from hardware stores, garage sales, eBay … only the best stuff,” said Dunlap junior Andrew Chen.

The “best stuff” included a pumpkin-holding bucket made of basketball hoops.