Shawnee Cross Points BBQ, Shawnee KS 9-11& 9-12
What another great weekend cooking BBQ. This contest actually has a lot of irony attached to it on 2 parts. The first part has to do with the weather. Last year, at about 4:00 in the afternoon, the local weather service broke in and interrupted every talk show on TV. Turns out a weird weather weather pattern had developed over NE Kansas and tornadoes were building fast. Over the next several hours tornadoes, heavy rain and high winds blasted NE Kansas. A tornado touched down about 1.5 miles due west of the church. For September this is very rare. Usually its hot and dry at this time of year, so an outbreak of tornadoes is kind of freaky.
The second irony of this contest is when I met "Sticks-N-Chicks". This was Will's first contest. After seeing a post on the http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/ and read how this was his first contest and how he and his dad did 8 practice cooks in Will's driveway and how he was stoked for his first contest. I had already planned on going out there, just to see how this contest was set up and say hi to some friends, when I decided that I had to stop by and say hi. I did stop by and hung out with Will and his dad and a basically the rest is history.
As I have written before, with every contest there always brings something that as a competitor you just say "WOW. Our neighbors just to our south was a team out of Carthage Missouri. Caveman Cuisine BBQ Team. They have one of the coolest set up I have seen,a log cabin on wheels. Chad is a super nice guy and we have competed against him at several contests. I noticed early Saturday morning that his "Cabin on wheels" looked a little tilted. Turns out he had a flat tire. Not only do you have all the food you need to cook and get turned in on time but you have a flat tire to deal with. By mid morning they had the tire off and later when I went and asked if they need help with anything, he said his father in law was working on getting a tire. 
It also turns out that on the way up to KC, his transmission on his pick up overheated and they had to wait 2 hours for it to cool down. Chad was about 30 miles from the contest site but he could not go any further until it cooled down. With all this "Captain Caveman BBQ" team finished with a 4th place finish overall. My hat is off to them for this finish. This is the stuff that make teams loose there minds at contests.
Overall it was a succesful weekend for "Sticks-N-Chicks". We finished 19th overall with a 23rd place finish in chicken, 20th in Ribs, 4th in Pork, and 27th in Brisket.
This week we are off to cook at http://www.shawneegreatgrillers.com
