My friend Sandy Autry, aka Hootie Que is a bit of a rarity on the competition circuit; he is a solo cook, a self-proclaimed One Man Wolfpack. At some of the larger events though, a little help is needed when your cook site is a quarter mile from the turn-in table. And so Sandy asked me to run his boxes for the Evans Georgia contest. After all, every Superhero deserves a sidekick, right?
This contest is part of the Banjo-B-Que festival held Memorial Day weekend. They had some good bands I would like to see, and my camper was in the shop for a week of warranty work, so why not drive over to Augusta for a couple days, I figured. As usual, outdoor events inspire Mother Nature to release the most devious weather from her magic bag, so Evans was “blessed” with a foot or so of rain that weekend.
What do you get when you put a hundred trucks and trailers plus a few thousand people into a saturated field? A fine buffalo wallow, that’s what. Friday it rained on an off throughout the evening making it tough to enjoy the headliner act, Old Crow Medicine Show, but I was able to catch a bit of their set. On Saturday, the clouds cleared for most of the day, allowing at least your torso to stay dry. From the waist down, not so much.
I timed the trip from the Hootie Que trailer to the judging tent, and it was 5 minutes via the longer, drier way around the perimeter of the park, or 2:45 if you cut directly through the center of the field. The shorter path was riskier as you had to navigate through six inches of gumbo mud and numerous puddles while trying to keep your turn-in box level and protected from splatters.
This was a KCBS contest, so each of the four meats had to be turned in at 30 minute intervals, within a ten minute window. If you are early, the meat gets cold and you score poorly, if you are one second late you are disqualified, so timing your turn-ins is critical. Sandy was doing a good job getting the entries ready to go a few minutes early so I had enough time to take the safer route. Until we got to the last meat, that is.
He had cooked two briskets, a Wagyu and a prime and was having difficulty deciding which to turn in. Having a second opinion just seemed to make the decision harder, and since he was the boss it was up to him to make the choice. Finally I stepped out of the trailer and with three minutes left I told him “I’ve got to GO Sandy!” He released the box.
There was no time now, so up the middle I went, skidding and splashing through the muck. It’s a tricky thing balancing the desire for speed with the need to protect your all-important Styrofoam box. It has to get there in time, but it also has to be intact – nobody likes brisket dipped in stinking mud from an ex-cow pasture. I was exactly in the center of the wallow when the Rep yelled “One Minute!” Myself and a couple other late runners put on a fresh burst of speed, squish-sliding forward to beat the clock. I made it with forty seconds to spare.
Safely enthroned in their closed tent, the judges were not impressed with my performance any more than they were with Sandy’s food that day. Out of 73 teams, Hootie Que finished in 55th place. To be fair, this was a huge number of teams, including some of the most successful people on the circuit from as far away as Kansas City, Oklahoma and Texas. To give you an idea of the level of competition, our chicken was judged to be the best entry on our table, but still finished 40th.
After awards, Sandy departed to return home to Winder, Georgia. I had a hotel room for another night, so I joined the gang at the Que’n Stew’n & Brew’n camp that had gathered to watch other cooks attempt to get through the field with their trucks and trailers. (Sandy’s site had been on pavement, so he escaped easily)
Despite four wheel drive, none of the rigs were able to move more that a few yards before their tires turned into slicks packed with mud. Bobcat “skid steers” with tracks were brought in to tow the stuck rigs out, since nothing with wheels could make it.
By this time I was worn out, but I wanted to at least catch a bit of The Infamous Stingdusters who came on the stage at 7:30PM. The number of music fans may have been reduced by the weather, but those that had braved the mud were embracing the day, Woodstock style. The Stringdusters did an amazing long cover of the Allman Brothers’ “Jessica” that I really enjoyed. I would have liked to stay for the headliner Jason Isbell, but the long day and deep mud had taken their toll, and it was time to leave the evening festival to the younger spirits, and get back on the road in the morning.
