Roland Schieder (44), of Cromwell, was on his ''home turf'' when he sent a cherry stone a distance of 11.61m yesterday to clinch the national title.
The New Zealand championship was moved from early December to early January and formed part of the inaugural Cromwell Cherry Festival yesterday.
As well as 101 competitors vying to spit a pip the greatest distance, other cherry-themed activities entertained the crowd in the Cromwell mall.
A cherry-pie-eating contest proved messy for the 15 competitors, who had to finish a plateful and lick the plate clean, while a similar number tested their cherry-pie-baking skills.
Cromwell Promotions hosted the event and group member Karen Lindsay was happy with the success of the changed format.
''It makes sense to hold it in early January when there's more cherries around than in early December, when it used to be held, and there's extra people on holiday in the area at this time.''
The winner of the national cherry-pip-spitting championship won a trip to Australia to compete in the 2011 Australasian cherry-pip-spitting championship at the Cherry Harmony Festival in Perth in December.
Mr Schieder, a Cromwell businessman, said he had entered the contest only once before, and had not put in any practice.
''In fact, I didn't even know this was on, until today.''
Luck was part of the winning formula, he said.
''Sometimes you just get lucky and everything comes together and you get a great distance. I think lung capacity helps, and how quickly you exhale helps, and I'm sure that quitting smoking a year ago helped me.''
Competitors paid $2 for three cherries and spat the stones on a 2m-wide ''track''.
The winner of the women's section was Heike Reintjes, also of Cromwell, who has won four out of five years.
Her words of advice to other competitors were: ''The more relaxed you are, the better.
''If you tense up, it doesn't work the same.''
Her winning distance was 6.92m.
