Tag Archive: Interview With the Champs

  1. Interview with the Champs – Pullin’ My Money Muscle

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    Day one of the BBQ Jamboree in Fredericksburg, VA saw a new face in the winner’s circle. Tom Sainclair, pitmaster of Pullin’ My Money Muscle Competition BBQ Team pulled of his first KCBS grand championship. Check out Tom’s answers as we inquired about his first GC and all-around interesting weekend! Tom’s been hot this year and I bet the next one is around the corner!

    Question:
    So, we understand you had some troubles right out of the shoot in Fredericksburg…tell us about that.
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    Yes, we all had a tough offseason. Our trailer was in the shop for almost 6 months getting worked on with all our smokers in it so we never got to practice the whole off season. Our truck was having fuel pump issues and I have had bad back troubles. The truck was bucking on the way down to the competition so bad, Melissa wanted to turn around and go home and cancel. We already had cancelled Hagerstown because of all this and I really didn’t want to cancel another one. We pushed on and made it but it took forever and we were exhausted.

    Question:
    How did your cook on Day 1 go? Were you confident?
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    In a word….NO!!! Our cook was challenging. My back was so bad at one point I couldn’t stand up from a seated position without help. I was walking with a cane. One of the teams gave us some pvc piping to put on the legs of our table so I could stand up while making the boxes. We forgot a rub and foil. Other teams were very nice and helped us out with all these things but I was just trying to turn in some decent food. That’s what I thought we produced, decent food, not special just good. In fact, I thought our day 2 food was much better and we finished 19th, so goes to show you what I know!

    Question:
    When did you know you might have a chance to pull off the win?
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    Well we started awards with a 1st in sauce and a 1st in chicken. We then got 8th in ribs but it wasn’t until we took 5th in pork I thought we had a chance. I mean I thought brisket was our best category but you know how that goes, that’s normally the kiss of death. Then they called us 4th in brisket and I started to sweat.

    Question:
    How did it feel when they finally called your name as GC?
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    Well I got really nervous when the organizer announced that the difference between 1st and 2nd was 0.6 points! My first reaction was omg we are going to come up short again. We have been so close so many times and I had myself talked into the fact that we were falling short again. Once I heard them call Wolfs Revenge as RGC I was hit with every emotion all at once. I mean everything we had been through, the lack of practice, the pain I was in, how long we have been waiting for this, it all hit at once. One thing I have never told anybody was that a couple of years ago we almost quit competition BBQ. We had a bad year, everyone was getting so good, I just didn’t see the point in continuing to dump more money into this hobby if we weren’t going to get many returns. We decided to give it one more year and see what happened. That year we did well, and here we are. I always wondered how I would react if we won, and the bottom line was I was just overcome and filled up with tears.

    Question:
    Some of the best teams in the country were there, how did it feel to beat them on this day? Did it make it more special?
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    Listen, after waiting this long for a GC, I would have taken one against a bunch of backyard teams making their pro debuts! I guess to answer your question specifically though, yes it was very humbling to have it happen against such a great quality field as this one. Some of these teams have mentored us through the years, and a lot of them we look up to and admire for their unbelievable consistency. Bottom line is, competition bbq is tough. EVERYONE is good or they wouldn’t be there. So you definitely need a little luck no matter how good you are to win, and we were super lucky that particular day.

    Question:
    Now you’ve got a bung for a the “Jack,” and an entry into the Royal Invitational. What are your thoughts about that and will you go?
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    So while we have certainly been a good team on the circuit for a while now, it took us a long time to pull all 4 meats together at 1 comp and win the GC. I would love to tell you that this will be our first of many, but I cant do that. We may never win another GC again. So yes, we are in the early stages of planning to go to the Royal, we want to go at least once. We only have like an 8% chance of going to the Jack, but hell yeah, if we get our bung drawn, I wouldn’t miss that for the world!! When we first started competing, I had a list of goals I wanted to accomplish, and going to the Royal and the Jack are the only 2 left I need to check off my list!

    Question:
    How did you celebrate after the big win on day one?
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    Honestly, we didn’t really have much time to celebrate. By the time we got back to the trailer it was time to start injecting and getting ready for day 2. Also, once the adrenaline wore off, I was in incredulous pain. Sometimes I still don’t know if I even believe that it happened. If there was any competition, out of every one we have ever done, that I did NOT expect to win, it would have been this one with everything going on. It just goes to show you, on any given Saturday, anything can happen.

    Question:
    Where are you cooking next and what’s the plan for the rest of the year?
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    We are competing in the double at Gettysburg Memorial day weekend. We are only signed up for 11 comps total this year, and we probably wont sign up for any more now either that we are adding the Royal. That will bring us to 13 and totally drain my vacation days for the year. If we get super lucky and get drawn for the Jack, we are in trouble!

    Question:
    Congrats again…anything you’d like to add?
    Tom Sainclair, Pullin’ My Money Muscle:
    I would just like to say that the reception we got, when they announced our name, was unbelievable. It was like a receiving line at a wedding. The bbq community is SO nice and So supportive its beyond comprehension. My phone was blowing up from other teams at other comps congratulating us. We love being a part of these wonderful people and what they represent. It’s said so much its almost cliché at this point, but everyone IS like family. I don’t think we could ever totally quit competition bbq because of the people in it.

    I also am so lucky to get to share these experiences with my 2 best friends in the world, Melissa and Dave. They are the best teammates ever. Angela, Dave’s wife, is a saint too. She always supports anything we want to do. Finally, thanks to you for asking us about our story!!

  2. Interview With the Champs – Scott Adams, Sauced! BBQ

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    by Brian Walrath, MABA Board Member and Pitmaster for Brown Liquor BBQ

    The Sauced! BBQ team is a family team that’s been competing since 2009 and steadily have been getting better and better every year.  With a dozen grand championships to this name, pitmaster Scott Adams and his crew are starting to become one of the elite teams in not only the Mid-Atlantic, finishing fourth overall in 2016, but the entire country with a ninth place finish in all of KCBS!  Scott was gracious enough to answer some questions about his team and offer up some nuggets of wisdom that has helped him along the way.

    Question:
    For folks who may not be familiar with Sauced! BBQ Team, tell us a little about your team, set up, equipment.

    Scott Adams, Sauced! BBQ:
    Sauced! BBQ consists of myself, my wife Joline, and my 2 kids, Zoe and Zane. We started out on an offset stick burner that I heavily modified before adding a Backwoods Party I bought on the cheap from another team.  We replaced the stick burner with a Stumps Elite 4 in 2013 and then went all Backwoods adding a G2 Competitor to go along with a Party. We’ve been using that setup since 2015.

    Q:
    You’re already off to a great start in 2017, but let’s talk about 2016.  You cooked nearly 40 contest last year!  You had a great run including 5 GCs, 8 RGCs, impressive showings in the Sam’s Club National BBQ Series, and in Kansas City in the Open and Invitational.  Tell us about last year.

    SA, S!BBQ:
    Last year was definitely a banner year for Sauced! BBQ.  We started out well at the beginning of the year and just kept adding events, cooking anywhere and everywhere we could.  We cooked in 13 states, taking home a GC in 5 of them and logging just under 20k miles travelling the BBQ circuit.  We hit many new states for us including Indiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Kansas and California.  Several bucket list items were checked off including the Sam’s Final in Arkansas, receiving an invite to the King of the Smoker in California and finishing in the top 25 of all 5 KCBS standings including 9th Overall.  The one bucket list item we didn’t get to check off was The Jack.  It felt good that we had 5 bungs in 4 different states but still didn’t get the draw.  We are hoping the luck is with us in 2017 and we can get that magical invite!

    Q:
    You came out of the shoot strong this year already with a GC your first time out in Lakeland, FL and followed that up with an RGC in Young Harris, GA.  To what can you attribute your early season success?

    SA, S!BBQ:
    The biggest part of our success is we didn’t really have much time off so we never had a chance to get rusty.  We cooked in to December last year and then we started our 2017 at the Sonny’s Invitational in mid-January so we really only had a month off.  That allowed us to keep that routine and flow we’ve built over the last few years with a cooking process that is pretty much second nature to us at this point.

    Q:
    What are your goals for the 2017 campaign?

    SA, S!BBQ:
    We hope to continue our success in to 2017. Our main goal is to get that Jack invite and hopefully be in the mix for team of the year when its all said and done.  We’ve been 9th and 10th the last 2 years so I am hoping we can close in on the top this time around.  Also, it would be nice to take home the Old North State Series (NC events) title.  We’ve been 2nd two of the last three years so we’ll see if we can get over the hump this year.

    Q:
    Let’s go back a few years…tell us how you got into competition barbecue and what drives your passion to compete so much. 

    SA, S!BBQ:
    We cooked BBQ at home for a year or so and started to get the ‘you should do a competition’ comments from the friends we invited over to eat regularly.  We started competing in 2009 at an event in Lincolnton, NC.  By the end of the comp we had won People’s Choice and had a 6th place Chicken call. That was all she wrote.  We did 5 comps that first year and gradually increased it year by year as we got better and ended up doing 40 in 2016.  The main driver is the fun and camaraderie of the competition BBQ.  Cooking competition’s week in and week out is hard work so if it wasn’t for the great people we meet and see week to week I don’t think we would do as many as we do.  It also helps to have an awesome understanding wife who also enjoys BBQ and that lets us turn it in to a family event. The kids love going to BBQ and seeing new places and old faces.

    Q: What makes Sauced! BBQ Team different or unique?

    SA, S!BBQ:
    I think we are different/unique in that we are able to travel basically all over the country and have success at BBQ.  We have recipes that travel well and we aren’t afraid to take them on the road to faraway places.  We cooked against the best at competitions all over the country and were able to stand toe to toe with them and have success.  We are very proud of that. Also, we are unique in the ‘Cousin Eddie’ beat up RV we roll up to a contest in.  We certainly don’t look the part of a competition BBQ team.  Lol

    Q:
    You’re in the southernmost state for MABA down in North Carolina…do you get up to the heart of MABA-land much or have plans to this year?

    SA, S!BBQ:
    We’ll do the most events we’ve ever done in MABA country this year.  We’ll be in West Virgina, Virginia a few times as well as Delaware and possibly Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

    Q:
    Lexington style or Eastern NC style?  Duke or Carolina?  Beaches or mountains?

    SA, S!BBQ:
    Ha,  let me see.  Lexington style. I need some ketchup in my bbq sauce. Neither. I am a Florida State grad so if both duke and unc can lose every game I’m all for it.  Beaches. I prefer the heat over the cold anytime.  We really hit our BBQ stride in the August, the dog days of summer!

    Q:
    I like to ask in this segment, what tip(s) do you have for competition teams to go from good to great and get that GC call?

    SA, S!BBQ:
    Simplicity and repetition.  Overly complicated processes are very hard to replicate week in and week out and especially so at a BBQ contest where you are sleep deprived and distracted.  Repetition is key. Once you find a process, flavor combo or method that works you can take out as many by doing the same things the same way every single time you do them.  I am the worst person to talk to when it comes to those convo’s at BBQ events about ‘have you seen this or tried that?”  I don’t change anything so I am not up on all the new rubs, sauces and injections. I found stuff that works for me and I use it and do it the same way every single week.

    Q:
    Any parting shots, things we missed or anything to promote?

    SA, S!BBQ:
    I want to give a shout out to the Q Pine Nation, a group of our buddies who compete and travel with us.  They are quite a diverse group who can do about anything you need and are certainly some of the most fun people and best cooks you’ll ever meet.  Not to mention the mad skills they possess from rv repairs to property management to cable making to cigar smoking!