BRADY FLANIGANStaff Writer

Half the pages in the notepad were soaked in a sweet-smoky syrup. There was a saddlebag on one shoulder and a camera on the other. In the left hand there was a pork rib, glazed by a manic wild-eyed Italian who just pulled it from what looked like an oil drum. The right hand clutched the notepad.

There was a dull layer of dust and smoke everywhere. Behind the Lynchburg courthouse, Wiseman Park was full of RVs with nearly 90 pit masters cooking barbecue as madly as the Italian. There had to be a paper towel nearby, but moving seemed daunting. It was the mid-morning, and it was getting hotter. Everything was getting sweatier and dry rubbed in gravel. If anything moved around wrong, the bags could slip, and everything could careen into the ground.

Stay still, don’t move. The notebook was full of scribbled details and ramblings from people all over the square–a woman strolling in a banana colored ball gown, probably dressed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. “Where was the beast?” a little note in the corner of a page read. There were a few statements about tupperware and the curiosities of funnel cakes. But the sauce had to go somewhere. It was paralyzing. So the final decision was in the palm of a hand. Half a wad of stories wiped in barbecue and tossed away in a trash can near a van of Swedes cooking brisket. This could’ve been the end to the plot to infiltrate Jack Daniel’s 35th annual World Championship Invitational Barbecue, but it was only noon and there were five hours to go.

Saturday’s chaos started far outside Lynchburg. Traffic was backed into the hills for miles. Fifteen minutes outside of town, and the air was already smelling like a rickyard fire. Ten minutes outside of town, and the air was already smelling like a hog house fire. A woman in the passenger seat of a green Jeep was standing up with the radio blaring as everyone crept toward the square.

Just inside town, where the first houses started to appear, a man sat in a porch rocking chair picking a banjo. He was the kind of character that nobody would be surprised to see sitting in that same spot in pictures from the ‘20s—as timeless as a boulder. And then next to him, in his driveway, there was a topless three-wheeled Polaris wrapped in full Jack Daniel’s skin. From then on, Lynchburg buzzed like an electric carnival. The square was blocked off by humvees. Coffee County’s Sheriff’s Department directed traffic and wandered through the menagerie. Under the gazebo next to Miss Mary Bobo’s, a man played a guitar to wandering crowds. 

Down in Wisemen Park, the teams competing were organized like a roving bazaar that traded their tents for RVs and their wares for meats. Each of them sported a banner saying who they were and where they were from: Big Smoke BBQ from Australia, Cook Cartel from New Zealand, Cooklounge BBQ from Austria, Luna Smoke from Italy, Belgium’s Just Wing It BBQ, Justice BBQ from Costa Rica, Finland’s Smoking Finns. All in, 67 American teams and 21 foreign teams were competing—too many to mention. In the end the winning team would take home twenty-five grand and a spot at next year’s competition.

Speaking with several cooks, the methodology was obvious. “We don’t cook Polish barbecue when we’re here. We’re in Tennessee with Tennessee judges. We cook Tennessee barbecue,” the pit boss from Polish BBQ Kings said. Seemed to be the usual vibration. “When we come we don’t bring Finnish barbecue. We just make better Tennessee barbecue,” the Smoking Finns said. If anything the dice seemed a little loaded, but great cooks cater to their audience. At the end of the day at 5 p.m. it was a team from Boonville, Tenn., who took home the grand prize. Apparently they knew Tennessee barbecue the best. 

On the opposite side of the highway from the carnival around the courthouse and the maze in the park, there was a tall Old No. 7 tent reserved for Jack Daniel’s “Squires.” It’s some kind of curious members-only club with a proclivity for mystery. An inductee can only be invited by a standing member, cannot be associated with the alcohol industry, and must be “a generous, responsible person of character.” When they earn the title they’re given a symbolic plot of land on Jack Daniel’s property, much like adopting a panda or buying a star, access to a special tasting room, and the ability to join a Facebook page just for squires. Evidently at Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue they get a tent too. It was a no-press area, but asking the same thing to multiple people while holding a big camera can go a long way–nothing but more tables of barbecue and a sea of people wearing that iconic black and white label. It looked like a liquor store shelf having a company lunch. 

As shadows drew longer, and the last of the smoke curled away from Lynchburg, the day’s frenzy came to a slow smoldering halt. The Boonville team had won, but it didn’t feel like triumph—more like they played the game exactly how it’s rigged to be played. International teams have won before. But it’s Tennessee judges, Tennessee barbecue. Across the highway, the Jack Daniel’s Squires hid behind their curtain of exclusivity, sipping whiskey in a tent that felt more like a fortress. They weren’t part of the competition, not really. They were the velvet circus tent inside a meat-scorched carnival.

Back in the park, the teams were packing up, the scent of lost bets on the wind. They came, they cooked. They played the part, but no one really loses here. The smoke is the great equalizer, choking the town and everyone in it until you can’t tell a winner from a loser, a local from a tourist. 

By nightfall, Lynchburg was left littered with corn cobs and corn dog sticks–and the faint echo of a carnival that’s already half-packed up and headed out. It wasn’t about winning—it was about showing up, throwing down, and getting just close enough to the fire without getting burned. The road out of town was long, but the smoke was forever.