Illinois team wins second annual Wyoming Cup Challenge

WORLAND — An Illinois barbecue team, Quau, owned by cooker Mike Wozniak, won the second annual Wyoming Cup Challenge, according to organizer Dale Wagner.

The Wyoming Cup Challenge is an event within the Pepsi Wyoming State BBQ Championship and Bluegrass Festival. Wagner said they started the Cup Challenge last year with barbecue teams signing up before the first festival in Gillette. Three of the four sanctioned Kansas City Barbecue festivals in Wyoming have partnered together for the Cup Challenge last year and this year. The three are Gillette’s Smokin’ on the Prairie, Worland’s Pepsi Wyoming State BBQ Championship and Bluegrass Festival and Sheridan’s Best of the West.

“The original idea was to create an opportunity for cookers from across the United State to pull into the area and compete in all three festivals,” Wagner said. The festival in Laramie opted not to participate.

Last year there were seven cookers and this year the number increased to nine.

Quau, the third-place winner at the Worland festival and the 2012 Pepsi Wyoming State BBQ Championship and Bluegrass Festival overall champion, won the Cup Challenge this year earning a trophy and $775 in cash prizes. The top five teams earned prize money totaling $1,725, Wagner said.

Wozniak has competed nearly every year of the Pepsi Wyoming State BBQ Championship and Bluegrass Festival history, Wagner said. This was his first year in the Cup Challenge. As a judge, Wagner said he has been impressed with Wozniak’s work. “He is very meticulous. As are all of the nine,” he said.

Wagner noted that no local cookers competed in the Cup Challenge this year.

He said there were two local cookers competing last year, and what he heard from them, as well as a few other Cup Challenge cookers, is that competing in three festivals in one month is a lot of work and a lot of time for some of the smaller teams.

Wagner said the Cup Challenge will continue next year, although Gillette has opted out. He said only have two festivals within the challenge might be a blessing in listening to those cookers who felt three was too many; only having two may bring in more cookers to compete for the Cup.

He said the Cup Challenge would not have been possible without the support of ANB and Security State Bank.

In addition to the changes and working to improve the Wyoming Cup Challenge, Wagner said the Pepsi Wyoming State BBQ Championship and Bluegrass Festival committee will also be working on enhancing the two new events added this year — the 5k run and the mystery meat competition.

As for any other changes to the festival, Wagner said he hopes to be able to improve the electricity at the fairgrounds where the vendors set up. He said there are 30-amp breakers at the fairgrounds and most of the cookers needed 45 amps.

He said there are similar electrical issues during the Washakie County Fair and improvements would help both events.