Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
There’s an undeniable aroma coming from Bartow – barbecued ribs, pork and chicken sizzling on the grill – and the smell of victory.
That scent is made by the five-member backyard barbecue team of Mad Hatter BBQ. Led by Jamie Collins, the team is rounded out by Patty Currence, Craig Warner, Linda Warner and Kevin Greathouse.
The team was formed last year and has already risen through the ranks in Kansas City Barbecue Society.
In June 2023, Collins went to the West Virginia State Championship in Buckhannon, where he met Cary Chasteen, of Hold Your Horses BBQ. Chasteen helped Collins get started in the competition circuit.
“We went to Galax to another contest, and I hooked up with Toby Grimmett, of Oceana,” Collins said. “He’s a big guy in the backyard series. He just took us under his wing, right then and there.”
By September, the team was competing and although they didn’t place top three, they made a showing.
“We got our first call out there,” Collins said. “We got eighth place in ribs. We were competing against some of the top teams in the nation; probably twenty-four or twenty-five teams.”
From that point on, the team was bringing home wins from every competition they attended. They got People’s Choice and 10th place in pork in Ashland, Kentucky.
For Halloween, the team went to Galax, Virginia, and placed 8th and 9th in ribs on both days of competition. The ladies also brought home a win for their dessert.
“It was death by chocolate parfait and a smoked apple crisp,” Currence said.
“We decked it out with Halloween decorations,” Linda added. “It was really nice and really pretty.”
At the end of 2023, the team was ranked 109th in the nation.
For a team that had only been competing for four months, that wasn’t a bad rank.
Now with the 2024 season in full swing, the team is ready to bring home the big trophies and the big bucks. They have competed once so far and managed to bring home Reserve Grand Champion and Grand Champion.
Collins, who takes competition very seriously, was surprised they did well considering some of the setbacks they had while cooking.
“The first day, the chicken wasn’t thawed out enough,” he said. “We go to trim it – we’re skinning it – and it was pulling the meat. I said, ‘chicken’s done.’”
The chicken placed sixth.
“We get into the ribs, and I guess when the pig was a baby, he got a bunch of ribs broken and they were all grown together,” Collins said. “That was the best set of ribs we had. I told them, ‘we’re done.’”
Those ribs placed third.
The team quickly admits that Collins is hard on himself and, fortunately, the judges disagreed with his assessment.
Currence’s theory is that when Collins brags about the meat, they don’t place. When he thinks they’ll do terrible, they win.
Despite mishaps like using rib rub on chicken by accident or setting a smoker on fire when cooking the ribs, the team has a great time going to competitions and enjoys sharing their culinary creations.
“I can’t do it without these guys,” Collins said.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Linda added. “We have a lot of fun, and we’re just like one big family.”
“There’s a lot more work involved in it behind the scenes than you would think,” Greathouse said.
A lot of work, indeed. The team has to pack up all the ingredients and equipment and travel up and down the east coast to compete. They either stay in hotels or camp out at the competition area.
At one competition, Collins slept on the ground, Greathouse was in the trailer and Currence was in the truck. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but then came a downpour.
“It was a monsoon,” Collins said. “It was like a river runs through it.”
Then the pressure heats up on the day of, and the team tries to present the judges with the best possible portion of each dish.
“We’ll cook twenty-some chicken legs,” Collins said. “We pick six. We turn it into them, they take one bite. You don’t know where they’re going to take the bite from, so you’ve got to make that whole chicken leg taste the same.”
The team taste tests to ensure the rubs and sauces are perfect. All of them, but one.
“I don’t eat it,” Collins said. “I just cook it.”
“I argue with him all the time that he needs to taste it,” Currence said. “He makes us taste it.”
“I don’t eat my own cooking,” Collins replied.
It takes a lot to compete on the backyard barbecue circuit and the team has amass-ed several sponsors that help with funding.
“The community is the only sponsors we’ve got,” Collins said. “Matthew Taylor – he’s awesome to us. He’ll buy pork to grind up for sausage, and he’ll cut that one muscle out that we cook and donates it to us. Donnie Ervine at Trent’s – they’ve been real good to us, helping us out. Frostmore Farms, they jumped on board this year. They give us the maple syrup, and we use a lot of maple syrup. It’s actually some of the best maple syrup around. We’ve got people [at competitions] that want it.
“Inter-State [Hardwoods], they never say a word to us if we want to go somewhere,” he continued.
“They’re behind us a hundred percent. You couldn’t ask for a better company to do that for us. The Locker Room, they sponsored us for the last competition, and Adam Bosley, he donated us a truck to make it to the contests.”
The list of sponsors continues to grow with J&A Trucking, Travis Taylor Contracting and Mick’s Logging, in memory of R.J. Nelson, offering support, as well.
Although the team has only had one competition this year, it is already the top team in the mid-Atlantic by 130 points. The goal is to continue to dominate and come out on top at the end of the season.
Later this month, they will be traveling to Kannapolis, North Carolina, to compete in the Jiggy with the Piggy contest.
“If we can actually win the mid-Atlantic, that would be a great thing,” Collins said. “And getting in the top ten in the KCBS and stay there all year. Right now, we’re nineteenth with one contest. Some of these teams have done four contests, and we’ve done one, and we’re right there with them.
“On the next one, we’ll be top ten.”
In addition to competitions, the team also cooks for special events and benefit dinners at no charge.
“If people want us to do them, we’ll do them,” Collins said. “We don’t charge; we just do it.”
While they take competition seriously, the team still finds time to inject humor into everything and to have fun with it at all times.
“If you see a bunch of one legged chickens running around…” Craig started, making the whole team laugh.
“Eighty percent of the world is right-handed,” Collins said, giving an explanation. “A chicken leg is moist on one side, dry on the other. If you’re right-handed, you want a right-handed chicken leg, so if you see a bunch of chickens running around with just the left leg, you know why.”