Today I’ve finally tracked down the man himself. But when I step into the massive Riles team tent, he isn’t ready to speak just yet. Latex-gloved, he needs to clean a few more ribs alongside 10 members of his team. So I sit with his wife, Candace, who tells me about the commitment it takes to live the life of a professional competitive barbecue champion. “We used to cook 30 to 40 weekends out of the year,” she says. “There were weddings we didn’t make it to, birthday parties—all the things, but also all that winning got us to where we are today. You know, the name…”
She trails off but she’s referring to the Heath Riles brand name, splashed across the team’s merch and blown up on the stanchion panels that border the tent. Riles’s name is bigger than competition barbecue.
Winning has afforded him opportunities to sell and market a line of spice rubs, sauces, glazes, seasonings, baths, brines, and injectables. Riles wasn’t the first competition barbecuer to start selling products commercially, but he’s one of the first, arguably, to perfect the process.
When it’s time to meet the man himself, he snaps off his latex gloves and gives me a handshake—as every man I’ve met this weekend has. He speaks with an accent, the kind that turns “foil” into a single syllable word, ”fawl.” Riles is a big man, but when he speaks, his face blossoms into a conspiratorial smile, and he leans in a bit as if he’s sharing a secret with only you. It’s not surprising to hear that he once worked in sales.
Today he’s feeling both confident about winning (“I cook a really good rack of ribs”) and nervous about defending his title (“It’s a little bit of pressure, anxiety, whatever you want to call it”). He has reason to be nervous: A lot of eyes are on him as he defends his title, and, if he clinches this year’s grand championship, his second in as many years, he’ll be the first to do so since 1984. A truly legendary feat.
