Sam’s Club BBQ Tour Sacramento

This past weekend was the Inaugural Sam’s Club National BBQ Tour. It was a Kansas City Barbecue Society event. Over 30 Teams competed for the chance to go to Las Vegas and take on the best of the west barbeucers for a later chance to compete for the National Championship and get their share of the $400,000 in prize money. I ran into some of my old friends like Tom from Big Pig and a few new guys from the Grass Valley area. On the drive over I was imaging a large amount of people just running around eating and enjoying the smoke, but when I got there, not that many barbecue lovers where around.

First off this was a people choice event, which means you can’t buy any food from the teams competing, but you could get a free sample for the Sam’s Club Tent to get an idea of what was hitting the grill. Reason for this is to keep the price of the event down. Once you start selling food to the general public you have to pay for vendor fees and more health inspection. California is not the friendliest state for outdoor cooking. So when you’re not selling food, the crowd is going to be mush smaller and advertising is not going to be a vast as it could. 

Pro teams have a large expense out of their pocket to compete. You got the price of the meat, travel time, and the ever raising price of gasoline. I talked to Troy Black the man behind this tour and he told me it cost him $600 to fill his tour bus and gets about 8 miles to the gallon. He’s on the road 7 months out of the year and I would hate to have his gas bill. Tack on the price of meat, barbecue fuel and not getting much sleep these guys have a lot on the line to win.

Over all the show was nice to see in Sacramento. We don’t get events like this in our area that often. The Bay Area and Reno are the homes to some of the West Coast biggest events to date. This tour was to test the waters and see if they can become a large contender in the world of contest grilling. It's already got the biggest money purse in the industry.  Personally I had a good time. My crew was excited to see the locals competing in a KCBS event.

I think the Sam’s Club National Tour is going to be a huge event for the next few years. I hope to see them at Cal Expo or other bigger arenas in our area next time around. Once it’s open for outdoor vending we should see a lot more people attend. I for one will do my best to make sure they come back to Sacramento next year and every year after. Thanks to Troy Black and the BBQ teams for showing me a good time and I can’t wait to see you all at the next event. 

Results

Grand Champion: Big B's Down & Dirty BBQ
Reserve Champion: All Sauced Up
Overall:
1 Big B's Down & Dirty BBQ
2 All Sauced Up
3 Smokey's BBQ

Chicken:
1 Simply Marvelous BBQ
2 Big Poppa's Smokers
3 Big B's Down & Dirty BBQ

Ribs:
1 Tropical Heat
2 Big B's Down & Dirty BBQ
3 Leukemia Sucks Too

Pork:
1 Smokey's BBQ
2 Ribphoria
3 Big B's Down & Dirty BBQ

Brisket:
1 All Sauced Up
2 Big Shot BBQ
3 Humminies Hogalicious BB