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On Super Bowl Sunday, the best in the business have their chance to shine.

Competitors put in weeks of hard work and preparation in hopes of achieving the pinnacle of their profession: a record-setting night of chicken wing carry-out sales.

And Sunday's game provided a welcomed boost to business at restaurants who are feeling the crunch of a slowed economy.

Michael Banks, owner of Wing Zone in Bowie, said despite the economy, Sunday's sales were comparable to last year's Super Bowl Sunday.

"We had a good day," he said. "Sales have been down 15 percent the last two quarters, so we were concerned that would be the case."

Wing Zone national spokesman David Fitzgerald said for carry-out chicken wing restaurants, the Super Bowl is like Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving and busiest shopping day of the year for retailers.

He said the company sold more than 1 million wings nationwide this year on Super Bowl Sunday

Banks' location alone went through 80,000 chicken wings and said Super Bowl Sunday also serves as a forum to expose his product to new customers.

"We had at least three orders for 400 wings," Banks said. "It's not unusual to get 200, 300 or 400 wings ordered."

Jimmy Stansbury, who recently purchased the Cluck-U Chicken in College Park, said Super Bowl sales were slightly lower than last year, but said other factors aside from the economy played into that.

"It wasn't as good as the year before, but there were better teams last year," he said. "You had an undefeated team and an underdog last year and I think there were generally more gatherings."

Last year's Super Bowl featured the New England Patriots, who were 18-0 heading into the game, and the New York Giants, largely considered the underdogs, who ended up winning.

This year's Super Bowl saw the Pittsburgh Steelers face the Arizona Cardinals - a team with little to no following in the Washington, D.C., area.

Stansbury said College Park's Cluck-U hasn't been as troubled by the economy because the majority of his customers are University of Maryland, College Park, students who often receive money from their parents.

He also said staff and inventory preparation for Super Bowl Sunday is different than a normal Sunday.

"We had at least 10 people working on Sunday," he said. "On a normal Sunday, we'll have five or six. For a normal Sunday we'll go through six to ten cases of wings. This year, we went through 25 or 30 on Sunday."

Ramon Lara, manager of Wow Café and Wingery in Largo, said he had two extra employees on the clock during the Super Bowl rush and ordered 15-20 percent more wings in preparation.

Mara said his take-out counter was very busy on Sunday and was pleased that things went smoothly.

"For the carry out, the longest it took was between 12 and 20 minutes," he said. "I didn't hear any complaints yesterday."