Congratulations on the great results Todd. Just be glad that you only had low scoring hot links, as our sauce did pretty bad also. The sauce category was the only one I wasn't able to listen to the results on, so I wasn't able to learn what needs to be changed about it.
I really love the new KCBS scoring sheets, as it provides a ton of helpful information. Initially I was upset to find that our ribs only took 9th place, but then looking at the sheet, we were actually the best of our table by over 10 points. I will take this as a positive, and simply work on making some minor adjustments. It would have been nice to see how our appearance scores would have improved if we were aware that garnish would have been allowed prior to the cooks meeting, as we were initially informed that no garnish was permitted.
Although I always had a great amount of respect for the cooks, after competing for the first time, I am even more impressed about what you all do week in and week out.
Here are our personal standings:
Overall - 9 out of 25
Hot Links - 19 out of 22 (really surprised, I thought they were very good)
Chicken - 2 out of 23
Sauce - 14 out of 22
Ribs - 9 out of 25
Open - 6 out of 22
Although this was classified as a backyard competition, it was so much more than that. Abel Tirre was a first class organizer, Kelly/Kathleen MacIntosh were excellent as always, the 24 judges (I believe it was 100% CBJ with a number of Master Judges present), and a good turn out by the public. And a special thank you to the many professional teams that came out to help in a variety of ways: Andy Soto (Master of Disaster - mentor and table captain), Andy Allen (Rooftop BBQ - mentor), Jerry Aguilar (Burnin and Lootin - mentor), Thom Emery (bbqthom.com - judge), Steve Wilson (The Pit Crew BBQ - judge and also posted a
review of the event on the CBBQA website), Matt Dalton (Left Coast Q - judge), Mo Lyons (Left Coast Q - judge), Matthew Stark (Twisted Brisket - disposable cutting board guru and helper to all), and although I'm not positive, I believe I saw Cucamonga Cattle Company in attendance as well.
ray:
