Excelsior Springs, MO - 2008

Overall - 6th of 71 teams

Chicken - 1st
Ribs - 10th
Pork - 6th

Normally, I don’t like posting without pictures.  Pictures are worth a thousand words, so they say, and I’m not one to sit and type a long recap.  I also think the pictures are much more interesting anyway.

Well, without any pictures, I have to brag on my buddy Andy.  We teamed up again for Excelsior Springs.  Of 71 teams, Andy got his only first place chicken call of the year.  Firsts are hard to come by in any category.  Andy’s had many, many chicken calls this year and a few seconds.  He’s made a few changes to his chicken starting at Burlington, KS where he placed 2nd in chicken and we finished as Grand Champions of that contest.

Through the middle of the season, I was struggling with my ribs.  Once I got the second FEC-100 on the trailer, I haven’t been able to bring my Traeger grill with me.  This has been my rib cooker for over a year.  I was getting some great ribs off of it and had two top five finishes in ribs prior to leaving it in the garage.  It has taken me a while to figure out how to get the baby back ribs how I want them off of the FEC-100, but a first in Burlington, KS and a 10th out of 71 at Excelsior Springs has me encouraged that I have the right process for that cooker, finally.

We started the year very strong in pork, and then it trailed off a bit, not getting any pork calls over three contests.  It was good to see pork finishing strong again.   We’ll see what the next stop on the BBQ trail has in store.  Andy and I won’t be back together until River City Roundup in Omaha, NE the last weekend of September.  Randy and I get to team up again at Blue Springs in a couple of weeks.  Very much looking forward to that.  We haven’t cooked a contest together since Des Moines in early June.