Contest Recaps and miscellaneous stories as our current season progresses.
09-03-10 - Great
Bend, Ks - Back to back contests on a Friday and Saturday were brutal for
the 26 premier teams that showed up at the central Kansas town. The weather was
OK but it was very windy as expected and normal for central Kansas. We cooked ok
in the first contest and finished in 9th place overall among the
group of teams from as far away as Virginia. But in the second contest we kicked
it up a notch and scored a perfect 180 in chicken, and then we scored a perfect
180 in ribs!, our second 180 in back to back contests from the week prior
in Arkansas!,,,,,,Honestly, I don't know of a team to get a 180 on consecutive
weekends, nor 180's in 2 categories at the same contest. We finished in 3rd overall
at the second contest, with our highest total score ever of 701.1428!
08-30-10 - Wow! With a
prefect score of 180 in our ribs leading the way we were Grand Champion for the
second week in a row. In addition to the ribs we were 12th in pork, 7th in
chicken and 1st in brisket! An outstanding contest for us in the NW Arkansas BBQ
Championship in Springdale. This gives us our 4th chance in the Jack Daniels draw
the end of this week.
08-23-10 - We had a great
contest at El Dorado, KS finishing Grand Champion out of 37 teams. The win gives
us 3 chances in the draw to be selected to compete in the prestigious Jack
Daniels World Championship contest in October! Next weekend we head south to
Springdale, AR to compete against some great teams for the total $20000 prize
purse at the NW Arkansas BBQ Championship.
08-05-10- The
Marshalltown contest went well as expected, but the judging seemed odd this
year. We received a 6th place call in brisket and that was it. The contest at
Girard, KS was a great first year contest. The fried chicken dinner from Chicken
Annies served to the cooks on friday night was a big hit and the organizer had
everything else in order for a great contest also! Fun times, poor results on
our part. Next up was Yates Center, KS and our 3rd place overall finish was
supported by our 7th place pork and our win in ribs! Mason City, IA was a good
contest for us with a 6th place finish out of 68 teams. We finished 19th overall
at Iola, KS this year, not very well. Watch for us to break out of this mild,
mid- season slump at El Dorado, KS, our next contest on the 21st of August!
06-21-10 - The State
Center Rose Festival and BBQ Contest was a great, small town contest. The town folk
really came out to support the festival and contest. We got hammered pretty good
by the judges on our chicken entry, but otherwise we were pleased to finish 6th
place overall based on our 4th place ribs and pork and our 2nd place brisket. So
pretty decent; We'll take it! Next up is one of our favorite contests, as we
will travel back to Iowa to compete at the Iowa State Contest in Marshaltown.
06-02-10 - Versailles,
Mo was a small first time contest but not without some very fine teams and
competition in the middle of Missouri. The weather was beautiful with sunny days
and cool nights. We felt confident with our cooking and thought we did well in
our presentations. We ended up in 4th place overall with top ten calls in all
four categories. Not bad, but not without room for improvement. Kinda like a
"you can't win 'em all contest" for us. We are pleased, but will look
for better results next time.
05-25-10 - The Great
American BBQ has came and gone. It was fun and we got to see many of our
friends. We finished a very respectable 17th place out of 49 teams entered in
the Invitational contest. In the World Brisket Open contest, again we were respectable
at 26th place of 120 briskets entered. The Open contest was a bit of a different
story; as our brisket was judged to be only a score 147 and that kept our
overall score down at 639, and a finish of only 67th of 192 overall; not up to
par for us for sure.
05-03-10 - Mushroom
Festival and BBQ Contest, Richmond, MO - The weather; well, it was
wet and a little windy Friday, but nice overnight and Saturday was mostly cloudy
and cool. Great weather for cookin' bbq. So 25 teams showed up, a lot of them
were teams that we met for the first time, but also some old friends we've
known for some time were there too. The contest was fun, but on the outskirts of
town, and away from the downtown festivities. It would have been more fun to be
closer to town for us. But back to the contest; We kicked some butt!! We were
Grand Champion with the 2nd place chicken, 1st place ribs, 10th place pork and
the 3rd place brisket! We're happy.
04-19-10 - Capitol
City Cookoff - Jefferson City, MO - The weather was a little cool and rainy on
Friday, but really nice with a bright sky on Saturday. The increase in the
prize money up to $26000 brought out plenty of major teams looking for a piece
of the pie, including us. We felt really good about this contest, our cooking
was spot on, our entries looked fine. The results? We placed 4th in Chicken, 6th
in Brisket , not bad in pork and so-so in ribs, good for a 6th Overall out
of the 68 teams,,,,We'll always take a good solid top 10 finish in a strong
field of teams like that. Congratulations to friends Great Grills of Fire for
the Grand Champion award, and to Iowa Smokey D's for the Reserve.
04-12-10 - We have now competed at 3 contests this new year of 2010. North Kansas City was a good tune-up before the big contest in North Little Rock to follow the next weekend. We finished 38th of 109 at the NKC contest, and didn't really expect to do much better. At the North Little Rock contest the huge number of teams came from all over the Country to try to claim some of the $100,000 prize money!. The overall mood of that contest was different than many others that we attend; it seemed that there was way less a party mood among the teams, and much more of a serious attitude and a feeling of "the A game is on, don't mess with us" with many of the teams. After all, Grand Champion will earn a check for a record $20,000.00 !! We earned a 12th place call for our brisket with a score of 175.4284 and our total score of 669.7134 was good for an overall finish of 31st out of the total of 228 teams. We felt good about our finish at this amazing contest.
02-11-09 - Coming up this weekend; We are anxious to begin our season in Great Bend, KS at the Kansas Winter Q. We look forward to seeing some of our many friends there, and to see if our off season practice and recipe tweaks pay off. The forecast calls for cold weather and wind, but our Backwoods smokers don't mind that at all.
02-16-09 - Kansas Winter Q, Great Bend, KS - As forecast it was cold and windy Friday and the temperature plunged to 13 for a low. Tough conditions to cook in. We were surprised that everything went so well for us considering this was our first contest after the winter layoff. We were pleased with all our entries. The judges didn't like our chicken so well, and we felt our awesome ribs deserved better than 11th place. Our 4th place pork was really good, and the 1st place brisket was damn good! We are happy with our 6th place finish overall in the very tough field of teams that competed. Congratulations to Rob of Munchin Hogs at the Hilton on the GC, and to Kelly of 4 Legs Up for the RGC!
03-29-09 - Little Rock Smoke on the Water, March 14th. The drive down on Thursday was cold and wet, as was Friday. Saturday the rain cleared out, but it was still unseasonably cold. The $50000 purse brought out many of the best bbq teams from many states. 129 teams competed at the event, held at the Clinton Presidential Center. We felt we cooked good and were happy with our entries in all categories. Awards were presented to the top 20 in each category. After not being called to the stage for chicken and ribs, we were glad to receive that call for 15th in pork. Then the call for 7th in brisket really perked us up. Turned out our chicken and ribs scores were very respectable, and those combined with our pork and brisket gave us a total score of 661 which was good for 5th place overall! We missed the big $10,000 check for Grand Champion by 4 points.
04-04-09 - We have
friends cooking at several contests this weekend, the closest being Pleasant
Hill, MO. We would have liked to enter it, but we have Osage City, KS coming up
next weekend and the week following is Jeff City, MO. Check out Osage City at www.smokeinthespring.com.
They are up to 69 teams so far which is great! It will be our 5th consecutive
year there, and our hopes are up for good weather; we know it will be good times
with good friends! Results of all our contests are posted soon after the awards ceremonies
at www.kcbs.us.
04-15-09 - Osage City, Ks recap - When we arrived Friday it was cloudy and a bit
breezy, but the skies gradually cleared, and the wind died down to calm
overnight. Saturday morning the sun was out and it turned out to be a very nice
spring day. With 69 teams competing, we got to visit with some of our friends we
hadn't seen since last season. The mexican theme potluck dinner Friday, and the
breakfast shared among friends Saturday morning was great! So, it was indeed
good times with good friends, as usual. About the contest; we got our butts
kicked! It was our lowest finish and lowest score by far for a long, long time,
39th out of 69. We went from winning ribs and pork there last year to below the
middle of the pack. Chicken and brisket were no better. However, we do know some
luck is involved in each contest, some more so than others. And in this case, we
know we cooked much better than our scores indicate. Looking at the scores, it
appears there are other teams that hit a low scoring table or two, we believe we
hit 4 of them. So, with that behind us, we are really anxious to head to
Jefferson City, MO this coming weekend, hopefully to prove our finish at Osage
City was mostly just "bad luck".
04-18-09 - Jeff City, Mo recap - The $20,000 purse at this contest brings out many of the premier teams on the circuit. You can look down the results scoresheet all the way to 35th place or lower of the 55 teams and find very experienced teams capable of winning on any given day. We felt good getting a call to the stage for the 8th place ribs, and felt good about our other entries. In the end we finished 21st overall, not bad considering the tough field of teams, but yet not up to our expectations either.
05-03-09 - Independence,
KS recap - After a week of rain the grounds were very soggy.
Most teams needed to park on the roadway instead of the grassy park area and the
organizer did a great job getting everyone located. It didn't help matters that
a torrential downpour came along about noon Friday, and intermittent showers
continued. This was our 2nd year to compete in Independence. It's a very well
run contest, and it's always to fun to compete against our good friends such as
Buffalo's BBQ, Twin Oak, Little Pig Town, and the likes. Now for the good news!
We finished 2nd in chicken, 1st in ribs, 6th in pork, and 4th in brisket. All
that added up to being named the Grand Champion out of the 25
teams overall! Next up, we're headed to Lawrence, KS this coming weekend to one
of our all time favorite contests.
05-12-09 - Lawrence, KS
recap - This was our 5th consecutive year to compete at the Sertoma 48 contest.
It was a great weekend weather-wise, except for the stiff wind that came up
friday night. Severall canopies were destroyed by the wind. But overall it
was another good time with good friends competing to win some of the $4800 prize
money. We never have done anything special here, and this time was no exception.
We managed 10th place overall, with a call to the stage for our 3rd place
brisket. The judges just don't seem to get real thrilled with our food here, but
we keep cooking it for them.
05-20-09 - Claremore, OK recap - It was wet when we arrived, then it rained an
inch Friday night during the storm that came through. The contest was held at
the Will Rogers Downs Race Track and Casino, which was a great site, with
lots of room and RV hookups for the teams. There was live racing at the track on
Saturday, and the casino, although small, was lively each day. Now about the
contest; We tried last years chicken recipe, it tanked. Our ribs we not as
tender as we would have liked. Pork and brisket was good and finished 9th and
7th respectively. All this added up to 21st place overall out of 54 teams. We
were not pleased with our overall effort. Next up, this coming weekend we will
be at the Great American BBQ and World Brisket Open in KC! It will be the 75th
contest of our career, and we're hoping for really big things!
06-01-09 - Great American BBQ recap - A short story short; in the Open we were judged little above average, sub par for us. In the Invitational we had great scores in our ribs, pork and brisket, but the judges didn't like our chicken at all. We finished 10th of 44 overall, which is very good, but our dang chicken score cost us the chance to finish higher, up to a possible GC.
06-10-09 - World Pork
Expo BarbeQlossal, Des Moines, IA recap - We were really excited to cook this
contest for the first time, as we have heard many good things about it. This
year, they made the whole hog category a separate entry, and only the ribs,
shoulder, and loin were required to qualify for the grand championship.
So, we did not enter the whole hog having never cooked one. The contest was all
we expected and more. 59 teams came from 11 states to try and win some of the
$35000 prize money. It was a great venue at the Iowa State fairgrounds,
huge crowds coming out to visit and eat some free samples of pork cooked by all
the teams, great weather, and overall one of our favorite contests we have
cooked. A picture of me with the Queen and the Princess was a highlight of
course!
More photos I took of the event can be viewed here, http://picasaweb.google.com/garthgj/GreatPorkBarbeQlossal2009#
Now the results; We finished 12th in ribs, 15th in shoulder, and 3rd in
loin! That gave us a total score of 515 points good for 3rd place overall out of
59 teams!
06-26-09 - Iowa State BBQ Championship, Marshalltown, IA recap - 65 teams from 10 states entered hoping to claim some of the $12,000 in cash and prizes. The Riverview park is an excellent setting for a contest, and this year the weather was superb. We were camped next to our friends Donny Teal of Buffalo BBQ, and Bart Clarke of Twin Oak Smokin Crew, both from Oklahoma, and two of the top teams in the country. It's always fun to have good friends as your neighbors. We were happy with our cooking and felt we had a chance to do well. Last year we were Reserve Grand Champion here, and hoped the judges liked our food as well this year. The awards for the top ten in the four categories are called, and we only receive the award for 3rd place in pork. Next is the overall standings; some teams have had 2 and even 3 top ten calls, us just the 1. Many would assume the teams with multiple category awards would be at the top of the overall standings. This is not always the case. Our scores in the 3 categories other than pork were so consistent and good (placing 13th,13th, and 14th) that we were awarded Reserve Grand Champion again this year!
07-11-09 - Great Bend, KS
recap - Well, it's a good 4-5 hour drive for us out to this contest in the
central Kansas plains. It is usually hot, normally windy, and just plain not the
best weather to enjoy a contest at. This year it was no different from
normal. But, it was also our 5th straight year to compete there. Why you
ask? Well, it is simply one of the best organized contests in the State. The
teams are treated superb, the power is excellent, the Barton County Fair is
ongoing with a huge attendance, the folks love their bbq, especially beef, and
the organizer Kent Romine is simply one of the very best contest organizers
there is. Now about the results. To be blunt, the judging was not consistent and
accurate this year. Our chicken landed on the table from Hell, and finished 39th
of 41. Our chicken was awesome good! Other experienced teams also landed an
entry on this same low scoring table, look at the results! That cost us a top 5
finish or better. Our pork was 7th and our brisket was 4th. So we managed
14th place overall, even with the bad luck. Next up, El Dorado KS on July 25th.
07-27-09- El Dorado, KS recap - This was a well organized small contest of 29 teams this year. We enjoyed the location, and got to meet a few new teams. Also a high school classmate of mine was there helping with the contest. It was cool to chat with him as we hadn't seen each other since high school graduation! The contest was fairly uneventful and we felt we turned in quality entries. Our ribs placed 6th, we won the pork category with a very high score of 177.7142, and our brisket was 7th. With our chicken middle of the pack, we finished 6th Overall.
08-01-09 - Iola, KS recap
- This was a new, first time contest that attracted 21 teams from Kansas,
Missouri, Oklahoma and Iowa. All teams were impressed with organizer Katy
Donovan and her staff of volunteer workers, very much so! The park like setting
was a nice grassy area with 100 year old walnut and other shade trees scattered
about, and included a nice community building for judging, and a big swimming
pool for the kids. It was great to have Darren and Sherry of the Iowa's Smokey
D's team as our neighbors for the weekend. We congratulate them for winning the
contest with calls in all 4 categories including a win in ribs. Reserve grand
champion went to our friend Scott of Wild Blue BBQ. We finished 11th in chicken,
6th in pork, and 4th in ribs and brisket, good for 4th overall. Not bad, we'll
take it.
08-12-09 - Man, this coming weekend will be the second in a row we have not
cooked a contest. It feels like forever since our last. But maybe we need
the time off to get ready and fresh for the end of the season big contests
coming up. You know, kinda like the pro football teams getting an off week to
get ready for the push for the playoffs,,,lol. Anyway, our next contest will be
a new one for us, at Harrisonville, MO, only an hour or so from us over on the
Missouri side, on August 21st.
08-24-09 - Finally after a 3 week layoff we're back at it in Harrisonville, MO.
We arrived on site and were greeted by the organizer who guided us to our
assigned space very close to the judging building, just like we had asked for on
our entry form, a good start! The weather absolutely could not have been better
if is was special ordered; sunny and 80 for a high, and a nice cool 60 at
night. We joined many of our friends at Jeff of Big Creek BBQ's space
Friday evening for an excellent potluck dinner, really good eats! Having our
friends Rod and Sheri of Pellet Envy as our neighbors was good and always makes
for many laughs along with a bit of serious bbq discussions. Now the results; we
were 2nd in chicken, 1st in ribs, 15th in pork and 10th in brisket. We finished
as Reserve Grand Champion out of 35 teams total! The really cool thing
was, several years ago when we had just started, I had told Rod that a goal of
mine was to follow him last to the stage, or have him follow me last to the
stage, the order was not important. Damn if we didn't finally do it, and it was
one of the happiest days for us ever; congratulations to Rod of Pellet Envy for
the GC!
Next up, our home town contest, the Paola Roots Festival this coming weekend,
can't wait!
09-08-09 - The Paola Roots Festival had another great lineup of bands along with 65 bbq teams in town competing for the awards for cooking the best bbq for the weekend. The weather was great this year with clear skies and mild temperatures night and day. All of our entries came together without a hitch and we felt really good about our chance to win our home town contest. But our friends Andy and Kim of Smoke on Wheels had other ideas about that. Even with our first place chicken, 5th place ribs and 13th place pork , the judges didn't care for our brisket at all, giving it such a low score we ended up 4th overall out of the field of 65 teams. Not bad, but again just not quite up to our expectations. Congratulations to Smoke on Wheels on the Grand Championship;
09-15-09 - Park City, KS just north of Wichita was our destination this weekend. The contest was held adjacent to the Kansas Coliseum at the old RV park next to the Interstate highway. The park provided an adequate facility for a contest. The weather was really nice for the weekend, and 34 teams showed up to compete for the trophies, and some $8000 in cash prizes. Our cooking went well here and we felt good about our entries. Our chicken was especially good and finished in 2nd. place The ribs were as good as we normally cook and finished 5th. Pork and Brisket followed at 12th and 13th place. The quality of the briskets we cooled lacked a little and did not finish out as well as we normally expect. So overall we ended up with another top 10 finish at 7th place, ok, just ok. Next up is our trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas this coming weekend; we're really pumped up about this big contest again!
09-22-09 - Hot Springs,
AR - 53 teams were on site to compete at this contest with some $20,000 in prize
money. That size of a purse normally brings out some of the best teams from
several states, and this weekend was no exception. After a week of heavy
rains in the area, the weekend was dry and pleasant, and the site was in very
good condition considering all the rain that had fell. Friday night about 10:30
we had both cookers up to temperature as normal and put on the briskets and pork
butts to cook overnight at 225 degrees. We got a good nights sleep, and the ribs
and chicken went on to cook Saturday morning. All turned out very good in our
opinion, and our entries were turned in to be judged, then we awaited the
awards ceremony. 14 places were paid and announced in the four categories, and
we started out with 9th place in chicken, followed by 3rd in ribs, then
13th in pork. We were at that time following the calls of our friend Rod of
Pellet Envy, as he also had three calls which were 1st chicken, 2nd ribs, and
7th pork. His calls were higher than ours, but brisket still remained. We
received 3rd place in brisket and Rod was not called, which we knew tightened up
things a lot, but not how much until the overall awards were called. We
anxiously awaited as they got to the top and we were called for Reserve
Grand Champion. Rod had again won the contest for the 3rd year in a row. We came
very close (4 points), and we're really happy for Rod and his amazing streak in
Hot Springs!
09-26-09 - We're home this weekend, anxious for next week to get here, and our
favorite contest of the year, the American Royal in Kansas City! We get to see
friends there we have made on teams from coast to coast during the 4 days we'll
be there, in addition to compete against many of the best teams in the country.
The contest itself is huge, with some 119 teams in the invitational, and 490 in
the open. It's gonna be a good time in Kansas City!
10-09-09 - American Royal recap - In the Invitational there were 119 teams from around the country making it one of the toughest fields of teams ever assembled in one contest. We managed a call to the stage for our ribs placing in 14th, and that was it for us. Overall, we finished in 74th place, which is a bit disappointing, but then again looking at the competition, and teams finishing around us, it's not as bad as it looks. So, we set out to make a showing for ourselves on Sunday in the Open contest, which dang near 500 teams came from everywhere to compete in for the $10's of thousands of dollars of prize money (grand champion was worth $10000). Our 4 entries were all spot on, very well cooked and presented. So anxiously we awaited the top 20 calls in chicken, ribs, pork and brisket at the awards ceremony. We didn't hear our name at all,,,,,notta call. So we listened while the top 20 teams overall were called up to and including the Grand Champion to be. When they called us out for 6th place overall we we excited and proud of ourselves for a job very well done, and being ever so close to the big prize! Congratulations to our good friends from Boondoggle BBQ for winning the biggest bbq contest in the world!
10-26-09 -
Cloudy and blustery weather greeted us in Garnett, KS and, good news to
organizer Ted Uhler, also did 49 teams in his only 3rd year in charge of this
contest. The good work of Ted and his staff of volunteers have helped make this
a popular late season contest in east central Kansas. When they began to call
the overall winners, the outcome of the contest was in suspense as Munchin Hogs
had two category first place calls, Pellet Envy had one first plus a 5th and a
2nd, and we only had two 3rd's and a 4th. Fortunately, our scores out pointed
our good friend Rod of Pellet Envy by just a little under 2 points total, and we
had what was a goal of ours for a very long time, a Grand Championship for us
with our good friend Rod of Pellet Envy coming in at Reserve Grand Champion.
11-10-09 -
Talladega, AL - This contest was held in conjunction with the Nascar race the
same weekend. It was very special to be a part of the inaugural
event meshing Nascar and KCBS! It was definitely the most fun, and challenging
competition we have competed at, with 107 teams from 22 states competing for the
$50,000 in prize money. Also it was not easy with a drive of over 700 miles one
way making it our longest trip to date. I took some pictures which can be viewed
at this link;
It rained Friday during the night making many of the teams sites quite a bit
soggy on Saturday, but overall the weather was decent and the sun came out
bright on Saturday just prior to the awards. We didn't change any of our
cooking recipes to compensate for cooking in the south vs. the KC area; we went
with out normal entries and what we have been successful with. We were very
pleased with what we turned in, and went to the awards with expectations of a
good finish. Top 20 places in each category were paid and we received the
11th place award for our ribs, and were just out of the money in chicken with
24th place; our brisket was very respectable at 38th. What really got us was our
pork at 95th place, which was unbelievable , to us anyway. This resulted in us
finishing 38th overall, not up to our expectations. But we want to go back to
the contest for sure next year, it was a great contest, one of our favorite of
the season.