Hampton’s first-ever “Cruisin’ & BBQ’n Weekend” is this weekend with three days of food, music and classic cars. Events begin Friday at the Access Incorporated parking lot.
Saturday brings the Kansas City Barbecue Society competition, with more than $10,000 in prizes awarded. Roughly 20 teams will take part in the cookoff and Charlane Janssen, the organizer of this year’s event, tells RadioOnTheGo News after Mason City discontinued their “Up In Smoke” BBQ competition last year, she felt Hampton was the perfect spot for this type of event.
“I have been telling my husband for about the last six, eight years, ‘Hampton needs to do that.’ Mason City isn’t going to do it again. Hampton could do this. We have the facilities. We have the businesses that would support this. So, last year I was working on the garden down at Band Shell Park and I watched the car show go through and I thought, ‘wow, it’s too bad we don’t have something going on Friday and Saturday for the car show and just for people, a reason to stay in town besides Sunday for the car show.’ So I started checking into it and last October I paid the $400 and Hampton was in. We had to pick a date and that’s how we got this weekend.”
Teams from Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina and Minnesota are expected to compete this weekend. The teams, some with names like Smokin’ Dinger, Smokey D’s Wannabees, Low Eye Que and Buckshot BBQ, will submit entries in four different categories; chicken, ribs, pork and brisket. The entries will be judged by three Hampton residents, Jim Davies, Doug McWilliams and Janssen, who got certified to judge earlier this year.
“We kind of know what they’re doing back there. The judges have to be a member of the Kansas City Barbecue Society. They have to take a whole day test and sample. They sample and they judge actual items and they get certified and they are not paid. Some people like to do this just to travel, you know, ‘oh, I’ve never been to that town’ and they sign up and say they want to come here. And then we go through and pick them. And a lot of judges are certified in steak. Some of them get certified as a master judge. They can be table captains. And so this training goes on constantly after they take the first step to be a judge.”
Saturday’s cook turn-in times are noon, 12:30, 1:00 and 1:30 p.m. with the awards presentation at 3:30. For more information on this weekend’s events, visit Hampton Cruisin’ & BBQ’n on Facebook.
