Actually, there are no dumb questions, and I don't want to make light of them. This portion of the site is dedicated to helping aspiring growers get started in the sport/hobby/craze/schitzophrenic paranoia of giant pumpkin growing.
If you want to grow true giants, you need to start with the right seed variety. This is: Atlantic Giant. There are other varieties known for their size, most notably "Prizewinner", but these top out at about 200 pounds. The world record, as of 2004 is 1446 pounds grown by Al Eaton from Ontario. The only way to get there is with the Atlantic Giant seed.
There are two books out there that are revered as the "giant pumpkin grower's Bible". "How to Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins", Volumes I and II, by Don Langevin. You can find these at booksellers on the web, or perhaps at your local library. If you get serious about giant pumpkin growing, you'll want these books. Hot Update! Volume III is out, as of fall 2003. This one is better than ever! Get it now if you're even thinking about growing giant pumpkins!
One great site where a number of giant pumpkin growers post their pictures and journal entries is bigpumpkins.com.
Another site which lists all sorts of Giant Pumpkin Information is Backyardgardener.
Joel Holland is a former world record holder from the state of Washington, and every year he makes a video of his experiences, and that of other growers. You can usually find ordering information here: Holland's Land 'O Giants.
There is also a site that maintains genealogies and technical information of Atlantic Giant pumpkin strains. Serious growers love this stuff. You need to contribute to the site to get the best information, and its only workable with Internet Explorer, but the information is extremely valuable and well presented. If you knew what seed grew the 1262 or the 1385, you'd want that one, wouldn't you?: Atlantic Giant Genetics Cooperative.
Here are some indiviual grower sites. These let you follow the progress of various growers as their season progresses... similar to this site, in fact.
Clubs, groups, associations:
Lately, giant pumpkin growers are starting to notice that Calcium plays a tremendous role in fruit development. Calcium... Hmmm... Got milk???