Just wondering if the price of gas is keeping teams at home vs. traveling to an event?

It sure is. We are cutting out the long distance cooks this year like Kansas City and cutting our schedule back to only 17 KCBS cooks. We will not be doing any SCBA cooks but will judge a few of the SCBA & KCBS cooks instead. The longest two cooks we'll face this year are Medford, NY and Bentonville, AR if we qualify in the Sam's Club Series.

Rodger, no SCBA not even "Smokin at the Speedway" in Cayce. We really enjoyed having you and Marsha with us last year. Hope you will think about it. We have Harvest Hope Food Bank partnering with us this year so we should have a much larger crowd.

Mark, we have had to decide on the cooks we're doing based on cost versus risk. SCBA events pay poorly compared to the KCBS and MBN cooks. Our bread and butter is in KCBS and MBN. When cinnamon and mustard become winning combinations in competition BBQ...we are in a different world! BUT.....Cayce is on our tentative schedule! WHY?...you guys had a great contests and we can mix the visit with a visit to great friends down that way! Ya'll did an EXCELLENT job last year!

The gas prices are definitely having a impact on how often i can afford to BBQ. The price of meat seems like it has skyrocketed just as quick as the Gas in my area of Florida. Hopefully there will be some relief at the pumps in the near future I guess there is always wishful thinking.

Thats a big YES for me.
I have 4 already scheduled and fee's paid for this spring, but in the fall I will be picking and choosing more carefully with gas cost a factor.

Tim

At some point I knew judging would become more attractive anyway, I didn't know it would be so soon.