ALAMOSA– Competing against the world’s best in barbeque, Alamosa based Woody’s Q Shack tied for 15^th out of 467 teams at the American Royal World Series of BBQ competition in Kansas City this past weekend.

The American Royal, a Kansas City BBQ Society (KCBS) event, is the largest BBQ competition in the world and is considered the world championship. Sixteen of the teams came from nine different countries and the previous eight world champions were all competing.

Woody’s, owned by the Kyle Woodward and Jose Ortega families of Alamosa, was competing against all of the top teams in the United States including all of the top 50 ranked teams. The local team scored 693.6456 points out of a possible 720 and only 3.5 points separated them from sixth place.

This year’s grand champion is a three-time world champion and scored 706 points.

Helping propel Woody’s to their top 20 finish was a seventh-place prize in chicken where they missed a perfect score by just 1.2 points. The top five in chicken all recorded a perfect score of 180.

Woody’s tie for 15^th defeated several past world champions and KCBS national champions. The team qualified for the American Royal by winning the “Beat the Heat” barbeque competition here last month. The Royal was held in the infield of the Kansas Speedway.

Captions: Co-owners Kyle Woodward, right, and Jose Ortega collect a ribbon for a tie for 15^th place overall and seventh in chicken among more than 460 teams competing in the American Royal World Series of BBQ in Kansas City last weekend./Courtesy photos

Woody’s Q Shack’s smoked chicken collected seventh place out of a possible 467 teams competing in the world championships of barbeque in Kansas City, Kansas last weekend to finish tied for 15^th overall.