Chi-Town Smokers - The Madcap Laughs

Who the hell are the Chi-Town Smokers you ask? A new roller derby team? That tough looking bunch of guys standing around in front of the Willow smoking Marlboro's and Kools? The name can conjure up several images. It is in fact a competition BBQ team I formed a couple years ago with Perry Bax ( the podcast guy) . I got the idea for the name from all those great old drag racing commercials for Chicago Area dragstrips from the 60's and 70's that would blare forth from the old transistor radio.(you rememeber..Sunday! Suuunday! at Great Lakes Dragaway and US 30 Dragstrips!!..) The announcer would scream out the names of the drivers and the cars that would be appearing on..you guessed it ..on Sunday. One that always stuck out for me was Chris Karamesines and his Chi-Town Hustler. Imagine that..a Greek guy racing a Funny car and who was from my Dad's hometown of Alton Il. That could not have hit closer to home for me. So with that in mind Chi-Town Smokers was born being Im a Greek guy who has roots in Alton and cooks authentic bbq (smoked meat ..get it??). Anyway myself , Perry, and a co-worker of mine headed out to Shannon Il all prepared to flatten the competition with our great tasting bbq ....and failed miserably. Our next competition was a scant 2 weeks in Rockford when my co-worker opted out of going (shine on you crazy diamond) so Perry suggested an old college buddy of his to fill in. I figured what the hell..as long as he could sharpen knives and wash dishes then why not? So in stepped Rob Cisneros. Well needless to say we went up well against the big boys of BBQ and come home with some trophies and a little dough in our pockets. It seemed we found a winning combination of cooks and meat prep so the fax was sent to "Syd" and Rob , after a small ceremony,became a "made " guy with our BBQ crew. So now the three of us go out on a few weekends a year and sit in a field or parking lot with several other crazed bbq fanatics and cooks from all over the country and compete for who has the best BBQ..and we are still failing miserably.