While Nascar fans were preparing for the Daytona 500 this weekend, something much more exciting was happening at the Kansas City Public Library in Missouri.

The library was the setting of an epic showdown between fifth grader Sophia Hoffman of Highland Park Elementary and seventh grader Kush Sharma of Frontier School of Innovation, both participants in the Jackson County Spelling Bee. One of the organizers described the event as "legendary."

The spelling competition began with a pool of 25 students, but after 19 rounds only Kush and Sophia remained. And they remained for quite some time, as the bee went on for 47 more rounds. The organizers exhausted all of the words provided by the Scripps National Spelling Bee, forcing them to go to an extended list the officials put together using Merriam-Webster's 11th Edition Dictionary. After those words ran out, they called it a day.

"I think we were all really tired," said spelling bee co-coordinator and library outreach manager, Mary Olive Thompson. The event had began at 9:00 a.m. and ended after 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Thompson said officials were also concerned that if they continued to pluck words from the dictionary, one contestant might get a significantly harder word than the other.

"Scherzo," "scahadenfreude,," "fantoccini" and "barukhzy" were just a few of the words Sophia and Kush managed to conquer. One word, Kush recalled to The Kansas City Star, was so difficult that neither of them got it right.

"I have no idea how to pronounce it," Kush said. "It was a long word."

The two students will resume their spelling match next month, a rematch that may be significantly tougher given that the words won't be coming from the Scripps approved list of 300. The winner will move on to participate in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.