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.