The 21st Annual Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue hosted 63 domestic Invitational teams and 18 International teams at this year's competition. The 63 domestic teams represented the "best of the best" out of a KCBS membership that totals nearly 10,000 worldwide and based on the results of over 300 KCBS sanctioned competitions held during the past year. The competition also included last year's grand champion at The Jack (4 Legs Up - KS) and the winners of the other "premier" barbecue events held each year across the US such as the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo Barbecue, the Memphis is May Championship, and the open division of the American Royal Barbecue in Kansas City. The International teams that were invited this year represented the countries of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
As is often the case with competition barbecue events, the team names are generally quite witty and/or humorous, and the sites where the teams cook can be quite quite a "production" and colorful. The teams also arrive in everything from large million dollar Prevosts or Blue Bird RV's down to a simple flat bed trailer and pop-up canopies being hauled by an older pick-up truck.
Regardless of how we got there - or how "simple" or "fancy" our team sites were - the relationship among the cooks at this competition was "tight" and friendly. There was a deep and sincere mutual respect for the accomplishments that had brought all of us together - and while many of us arrived as "strangers" to each other, we all left as "good friends".
The Jack provided each team with a nice banner to display at each team's site. Below are photos of some of the teams that were close-by to where we cooked at the Jack this year.
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