8th Annual Winner's Circle BBQ Championship - Santa Anita Park

[Chris Allingham]

Folks mingle before the start of the Judge's Meeting on Saturday morning. That's Mrs. TVWB walking up the left side of the tent.


And here's a lovely photo of me and Mrs. TVWB. Photo Credit and Copyright: Frank Boyer


Here's something I rarely get to show you...an example of a turn-in box in the Judge's Tent, this one for chicken. Just some of the great photography of Frank Boyer. Please note that I did not judge the entries shown here. Photo Credit and Copyright: Frank Boyer


An anonymous judge sampling six chicken entries. Photo Credit and Copyright: Frank Boyer


Here's a rib turn-in box. Photo Credit and Copyright: Frank Boyer


A pork shoulder turn-in box. Photo Credit and Copyright: Frank Boyer


A brisket turn-in box. Photo Credit and Copyright: Frank Boyer


Me sampling a rib during competition. Photo Credit and Copyright: Frank Boyer


There was also an Ancillary Category called "Woodford Reserve Bourbon BBQ Sauce" in which a subset of teams turned in their own concoction feature a little (or a lot) of Woodford Reserve Bourbon. (Woodford is a sponsor of Santa Anita Park.) I chose not to judge the sauce contest, but I'm told the winning entry from Bar-B-Q's-2Go was da bomb!

Continued...

[Chris Allingham]

After all the BBQ entries were sampled, it was time to hit the racetrack for some beer and horse racing. What a beautiful venue!


In case there was any question where we were at...


Thundering toward the finish line...


Start of a turf race...


Heading toward what was about to be a Photo Finish between horses 2 and 4. Horse 2 won by a nostril!

Continued...

[Chris Allingham]

Enough horses, let's get back to barbecue. It seems I can't help but take photos of WSMs. I wonder why?


WSMs as far as the eye can see.


Kind of hard to see, but there's a junior pitmaster behind the screen serving up 'que to the hungry public.


"Ain't nothin' but a hounddog...q'in all the time."


A couple of saucy ribs from one of the vendors.


Team Woodshed was on-hand to get a 4th place call in ribs on Saturday, 3rd place call in ribs on Sunday, 7th place call in pork on Sunday, and 4th overall on Sunday. That's some stiff competition!


After the final horse race at 6:30pm, teams gathered for the Saturday awards ceremony.


The plaques were unpacked and ready for the winners.


And here's your big-big, two-day, winner-winner, hold-the-chicken-dinner: Jerry Aguilar of Burnin and Lootin BBQ (in the JD t-shirt). He took home the big money, the big trophies, a bunch of SRF Challenge prize money for winning using Snake River Farms briskets, a shiny new SRF Challenge Gateway drum smoker, a couple of 180 pins, and membership in the KCBS 700 Club for his Saturday performance. Left to right: SRF representative Annella, Ric Gilbert and Ben Lobenstein, contest organizers from Fire It Up! BBQ Events, Jerry, and KCBS contest rep Ian Schmidt. Photo Credit: Fire It Up! BBQ Events.


Jerry gets a meet-and-greet with Miss California MacKenzie Freed. What an outstanding performance by Jerry. Commanding! Dominating! Very Strong and Powerful! Congrats to him! Photo Credit and Copyright: Fire It Up! BBQ Events live FB stream.

Continued...

[Chris Allingham]

And finally, my greatest photographic masterpiece and the only photo I took on Sunday during Day 2 of the event. It's titled, "Clean Rib Bone On A Bed Of Garnish". That's a garbage can filled to the top with discarded garnish from turn-in boxes with a single rib bone placed on top by a hungry volunteer. A couple of stray forks are visible to the astute viewer.

Until next time...later!

[JerryA]

Thanks Chris, it was great seeing you this past weekend. I actually added 2 WSM's back into the mix. I stopped taking them when I started cooking chicken on a GMG. I have a small trailer so I figured I'd downsize from taking 6 smokers to just 3 drums and a GMG. Cooking ribs on a drum was great at some comps and real bad at others since the drum can get carried away, too hot, and hard to bring back down. That resulted in a rib slump, so I gave up and figured that I'd go back to what I know. The trusty WSM's got my rib scores back up and took a walk in Ribs both days.
Surreal experience for sure.

See you @ Lodi

Jerry

[JerryA]

I went on Saturday and was sad to see they changed the layout and there were noticeably less teams this year; I count only 7 or 8 teams. Were there more teams on Sunday? We still had fun but entries were way down, unless there was a section where all the other teams were and I missed it. hahaha


Congrats Jerry Aguilar BTW!!! Whoot whoot!!!

Thanks! ....