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    Smoke gets in your eyes

    Updated with winners: Pit meisters turn up the heat at rodeo barbecue cook-off

    Shelby Hodge
    Feb 27, 2010 | 9:00 pm
    • The Tejas Barbacoa Team prepare quail for the Thursday night launch of thebarbecue competition.
      Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • Holy Cow Cooker's sausage
      Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • The Goody Girls have been a popular cook team for many years.
      Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • The Ram's Club drew more than 1,000 party goers on Thursday night.
      Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • HLS&R board members kicked off the barbecue competition with a high-falutin'party in the Executive Tent.
      Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • The players already cutting up at the Rockin Bar-B-Que Room Hideout.
      Photo by Shelby Hodge
    • Ribs smoke on the Sharks" R" Us grill.
      Photo by Shelby Hodge

    UPDATE: Winners of The 2010 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™ World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest

    Grand Champion Overall: Drillin' N Grillin'

    Champion Ribs: Drillin’ N Grillin’

    Champion Brisket: Blowin’ Smoke 2

    Champion Chicken: Just N Time Cookers 1

    Most Colorful Team: Chevy Cookers

    Cleanest Team Area: Good Time Cookers

    Most Unique Pit: Xtreme Texas Cookers - 3

    Best Team Skit: Holy Cow Cookers

    Go Texan Best Bar-B-Que: Tyler County

    Go Texan Most Colorful Team: Harrison County

    Recycling Award: Blowin' Smoke

    Go Texan Recycling: Colorado County

    Dutch Over Dessert Contest Award: Nacogdoches County Go Texan


    Somewhere between the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo's first barbecue competition 35 years ago, when a meager handful of teams competed, and the World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest taking place at Reliant Park this weekend, the event mushroomed from quaint to colossal. From town square-style hominess to a barbecue smoke-induced Mardi Gras madness.

    So it was on launch day Thursday when 250 teams revved up the action in the party tents, some as elaborately outfitted as a Las Vegas saloon, and stocked their mega-sized pits with secret measures of mesquite, hickory, bark and more. For three days, the cook teams provide intense barbecue grazing and lively watering hole experiences for invited guests, all the while concentrating on their culinary sorcery for the Saturday afternoon competition. (Winners will be announced Saturday night.)

    Just havin' fun

    No one is more serious about it than Houston firefighter Randy Paul, who has trophies for Reserve Grand Champion and Overall Grand Champion to his credit. His Holy Cow Cookers home base is the most elaborate showplace in the vast barbecue village. Thursday night, he expected 1,200 guests to pour through his "tent." They supped on chicken, sausage and ribs; picked up espressos and cappuccinos (um, Lone Star Latte) at the Katz coffee bar and homemade cookies at the bakery, and were entertained by the Mark McKinney band. Bellying-up to the bar with the Holy Cow Cookers meant stepping up to a massive western saloon-style bar, complete with several flat-screen TVs.

    "If you're not having fun, what are you doing this for?" asked Paul. His 55-member team hosts a band each of the three nights and serves breakfast and lunch all days to the other barbecue teams. "We want to give back," he explained of the generous feeding schedule that provides for teams with a less-than-expansive budget.

    Paul's three-day barbecue blitz costs more than $100,000 to produce, a figure raised through various corporate and commercial sponsors. Those were the lucky ones who were invited in Thursday night for the mouth-watering chicken, ribs and sausage.

    French twist

    On the other side of the barbecue village and on the other side of the culinary world, the Sharks "R" Us team added a French note to their offerings of traditional barbecue fare. La Torretta's Chez Roux restaurant sent over three chefs, including namesake Chef Albert Roux (fresh from his base in London). To the Sharks' traditional barbecue fare, these white-uniformed chefs prepared pork cheeks braised in white wine, stock and vegetables, then rubbed with cajun spices, grilled and served atop cassoulet, um, make that baked beans.

    And on and on

    Over in the Ram's Club, where the rodeo's Lamb Committee members prevail, it was fairly swank with fresh flowers on the tables, animal trophies mounted on the tent "walls" and dinner served with real flatware and cloth napkins — no plastic and paper for this sophisticated group of rodeo-ers. The guys and gals had been cooking all day to prepare enough steak, chicken, pork loin, potatoes, green beans and peach cobbler for the 1,000 invited guests.

    Rodeo top guns (the ones with the personal golf carts and others) gathered early in the evening at the executive party tent where president Charles "Butch" Robinson and wife Paula mingled with rodeo/corporate heavy hitters including Tilman Fertitta, Don Jordan, Paul Somerville, Ed McMahon, Louis Pearce Jr. and Pam Springer, the only female vice president.

    Also in the mix was barbecue cook-off honcho Jeff Jones. The numbers according to Jones: 215,000 are expected to enter the gates Thursday through Saturday. If the weather holds, the take for rodeo scholarships should reach at least $1.5 million, based on 2009 figures.

    The caveat

    The barbecue cook-off is a good time for all but don't expect to be tasting any of the finest vittles or gaining entry to any of the swank party tents where the bands play unless you have an invitation. The team tents are private. The cost of admission gets you a free barbecue meal at the Chuck Wagon and free admission to The Hideout, the public watering hole for drinks (cash bar) and dancing to the sounds of a DJ. And live music is performed on The Garden stage.

    The level of partying intensifies each day reaching a crescendo of beer- and tequilla-fueled Bourbon Street-style revelry on Saturday night.

    unspecified
    news/city-life

    eyes on the road

    5 Houston highways rank among deadliest roads in America, per report

    Amber Heckler
    Jun 12, 2025 | 9:30 am
    I-45 Houston downtown
    Photo courtesy of TXDOT
    I-45 is in the hotseat again.

    Heads up to Houstonians commuting on the city's freeways: Five busy Harris County highways were just deemed among the deadliest roads in the country, with I-45 in Houston ranking as the deadliest road in Texas. That's according to a new study based on the latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data.

    The study, commissioned by Santa Ana, California-based company Future Bail Bonds, compared fatal crash data across 96,000 U.S. roads from 2019-2023. The top 150 "deadliest" roads were ranked by the total number of fatal crashes that occurred during the five-year period.

    The No. 1 deadliest road in America is I-15 in San Bernardino County, California, the study found. The interstate, which runs from Southern California to Las Vegas, experienced the highest rate of deadly car crashes from 2019-2023 with 196 crashes.

    For comparison, I-45 in Houston had 88 fatal vehicle wrecks during the same time period to rank as the 16th deadliest U.S. road and No. 1 deadliest in Texas. Considering that tens of thousands of people drive the road every day, a fatal crash is relatively unlikely, but the data underscores the need for drivers to remain aware of their surroundings at all times.

    The crowded highway stretches from Dallas to Galveston, and the I-45 North Freeway earned its own spot on the list as the 124th deadliest U.S. road. I-45N experienced 44 deadly crashes between 2019 and 2023, the report said. I-45's controversial expansion project between downtown Houston and the north Sam Houston Tollway (and portions of connecting freeways) also earned it a new reputation as a "freeway without a future" by the activist group Congress for the New Urbanism.

    Elsewhere in Harris County, I-10 ranked as the 22nd deadliest U.S. highway on the list with 76 fatal crashes during the five-year span. It was dubbed the third most fatal Texas highway, with I-35 in Austin splitting up the two Houston roads as the second deadliest statewide.

    "From 2019 to 2023, motor vehicle crashes claimed 186,284 lives across 96,257 roads in the United States, underscoring the persistent danger on American roadways," the report said.

    Two more Houston highways ranked much farther down the report, but still remained among the top 150 deadliest U.S. roads: FM 1960 ranked 114th on the list with 45 fatal crashes, and I-610 ranked No. 131 with 43 fatal crashes.

    Nine other Texas roads that were deemed the deadliest in America with the highest rates of fatal vehicle crashes from 2019-2023 include:

    • No. 23 – I-30 in Dallas County (76 crashes)
    • No. 27 – I-410 in Bexar County (73 crashes)
    • No. 32 – I-10 in El Paso County (69 crashes)
    • No. 63 – I-20 in Tarrant County (56 crashes)
    • No. 66 – I-820 in Tarrant County (55 crashes)
    • No. 115 – SR-12 in Dallas County (45 crashes)
    • No. 130 – I-35 in Bexar County (43 crashes)
    • No. 132 – I-635 in Dallas County (43 crashes)
    • No. 141 – I-10 in Jefferson County (42 crashes)
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