Alan, you absolutely have a competition cooking rig there! Congrats!
Not everyone enjoys it, but the ones that do tend to do it for many years, into their
60's and 70's. It's a fun mix of cooking, competing, and socializing. I really enjoy it.
We started competing in chili cookoffs and did pretty good, but frankly IMHO that's
the junior leagues in most every aspect to BBQ, and unfortunately that also means
money too. Where in chili, if you already have the stuff, the competition costs are
usually about $60 plus travel costs. BBQ, about $500+ plus travel costs. MBN,
because of the volumes of meat and the tendencies to have just that many more
ancillaries, it's closer to $1000 plus travel costs. I'm writing a check next week for
just the entry fees, and it's going over $500. But, the larger the stuff, the larger the
team it takes, the more fun (IMHO). If we happen to qualify for the MBN
championship (unlikely, but always possible), we'll do that one too. Otherwise, it's
just so darned costly that it's tough to do any more MBN comps. If I dont do taxes
this next year, we'll get over to Barnesville for their FBA comp. There's a really
neat KCBS comp in Waynesboro and the organizer of the Lake Oconee BBQ and Blues
KCBS is really putting on a fine competition. With any luck we'll be at most all of
these listed above.