Three Contests - Two Days - One Place & All Winners Head to the Jack!

by Ben Lobenstein

As if it wasn’t enough that never before in the more than 25 years of the Kansas City BBQ Society have THREE open/non-invitational full FOUR meat BBQ State Championships ever been accomplished in just 2 days. It turns out that ALL of the winners will advance to the 21st Annual Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue, yes all of them. The odds of that happening are just astronomical.

Here’s how the contest played out – less than 30 hours from the first turn in to the last award. There were some good reasons behind this idea, and even a rule had to be waived by the KCBS Board of Directors to allow this to occur. There were 1.5 contests on Saturday 8/15/09, and then the remaining 1.5 contests on Sunday 8/1/609.

The background – for the last 6 years California’s longest running BBQ contest – the West Coast BBQ Championships has been partnered with the Fairfield Tomato Festival, which for most of those years was a single day event. The last 2 years have seen the host/tomato event expand to two days, and therefore it was asked of the West Coast BBQ Championships to come up with a way to stay in place both days. The first idea was simple, do one regular four meat KCBS contest each on Saturday and Sunday, but then what to do with our group of “backyarders” who have only cooked chicken, ribs and tri tip in our contest for the last few years? The best idea was to move these “backyarders” up to a “split” contest. So we created a 3rd KCBS contest that was divided over the 2 days – this allowed anyone who had been daunted by turning in the standard 4 KCBS meats in the normal 100 or so minute time span, or didn’t have enough cook space to manage all four meats simultaneously, could still compete. Chicken and ribs for this split contest were turned in BEFORE the Saturday four meat contest, and the pork and brisket for this split contest were turned in AFTER the Sunday four meat contest.

As such 1.5 contests a day would be in violation of KCBS Rule #2, for which the West Coast BBQ Championships had applied for and received a waiver from KCBS, thanks to the help and support of Gene Goycochea and Merl Whitebook.

To add just another layer of challenge to this iron man cook, the West Coast BBQ Championships also had a Mystery Meat category, which was free and available to any team who was entered in any of the other contests. Most of the competitors were very afraid of the concept of Mystery Meat – since many are very calculated in their cooking styles. There were many guesses as to what the meat would be, but in the end many of the cooks had great fun with this, and nearly everyone said they enjoyed it enough to want to do it again. The only real thing that the contestants knew about the Mystery Meat was that it was Rancher’s Reserve beef (and thus many called it the Mystery Cut as technically they knew the meat), until they received the product at about 9pm Friday evening. The meat that the cooks were given was Cordelico Sirloin (flap meat) supplied to the contestants by Safeway’s Rancher’s Reserve, Alan and Mary Odor of Big O’s BBQ from Meridian, CA took top honors for this entry, with many of the contestants getting VERY creative in this category – most of the judges were blown away with the creativity and effort put into these delicious and delectable entries.

The team that can’t be kept away from a BBQ contest based out of Lancaster, CA – All Hogs Go to Heaven led by Steve “One Sock” Madaule, has been doing well in recent contests but has always come up shy of top honors redeemed themselves by taking Grand Champion not just once but, TWICE! That’s right All Hogs Go to Heaven took the GC at state championships two days in a row! Then the final award of the weekend which became the most special for the not just the teams present at this contest but many others who were not present. It’s not many times that contests get to announce a direct entry (no draw) into the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue. But this is how history is made for the California BBQ Association 2008 Team of the Year, Vincent Carrocci and Alexa Fairbairn of team Rhythm n’ Que out of Scottsdale, AZ . West Coast BBQ Championships was able to be the contest that gave them their 7th Grand Champion win (this draw year), which would give them an automatic to the 21st Annual Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue, which in turn would take them out of the draw for all of their other wins.

The final and most remarkable turn of events came almost 3 weeks after the contest as we all found on September 3, 2009 that All Hogs Go to Heaven won the 21st Annual Jack Daniel’s Invitational “California” draw making this another piece of history. Two teams crowned GC at the same event on the same day, make it to the Jack together. A big congratulations to All Hogs Go to Heaven and Rhythm N Que for doing what likely NO other BBQ teams can ever claim to have done. A testament that the best in competitive BBQ can be found on the West Coast – where history is best served smoked.