If the latter part of 2007 is any indication of how 2008 will begin, well, I can't wait. We ended our season in Lenoir City and ended up walking away with a Reserve Grand. It was an awesome setting right on Watts Bar Lake.

We didn't start off last year using the FEC because we weren't comfortable with it. But, after the first cookoff in Winchester, Tn., I decided to go ahead and add the cooker to the trailer and use it in Pulaski, Tn. and it turned out being a good idea. We ended up 10th overall out of 49 teams.

Anyway, after Lenoir City I toyed with the idea of adding another FEC but had decided that we'd just save our money and maybe pick one up sometime in 2008. Well, you know how it is when something just falls in your lap at the right price and you can't turn it down, or at least it' hard for me to. I picked an older model FEC up in December. I think it is one that Fast Eddy himself built, but I still have to do some more investigating on that. Anyway, it needed a little cleaning up so for the next two weeks I proceded to sand the entire frame and get the existing rust off and primed and painted it. I changed all the screws out and knobs. We took the heat shield and drip pan and had them sandblasted and they came out looking brand new. Well, in all actuality the entire cooker looks like it's alot newer than it is. The only thing that is lacking is buffing the stainless steel shell and getting the marks off of it.

There will be alot of practice cooks to finalize the procedures we use to cook pork and brisket. We used the other FEC to cook ribs and chicken exclusively. It's going to be pretty interesting to see how 08 will turn out but we're ready to get at it, but patience and time will be on our side while we fine tune our timing and take it on the road this year.

As always, stop by and see us whenever we're around. We're always ready to hang out and talk Q.