Herald Bulletin

Godzilla grill
By MELANIE D. HAYES

Sparks were flying, the noise was deafening, and the heat was on as people ran around, inside and outside the building, working on a deadline and trying to look good at the same time.

Employees at Southern Yankee Bar-B-Q, an Anderson business that makes barbecue equipment, will be featured on a special show on the Food Channel that will show them building a custom-made trailer in five days.

Billy Penny, who opened up Southern Yankee in 2001, said the Food Channel approached him with a challenge that he couldn't pass up.

"It's similar to 'Monster Garage.' We have five days to build a project that would normally be a 30-day project," Penny said.

The project was to build a 7-by-18 foot trailer, with two decks, four pull-out awnings, a smoker, and all the amenities an avid barbecuer could dream of.

"I thought it was an honor to do it," Penny said. "It's not like they went down a list and got to us. They asked us first and we knew we could do it."

High Noon Productions, based in Denver, was filming the show for the Food Channel's two-hour special that will air in May or June of 2005. The first hour will focus on the five days it took Southern Yankee employees, artists and other team members to build the trendy trailer. The second hour will show a family of barbecuers taking the trailer on the road to a barbecuing competition in November in Georgia.

The team of builders had to work on a limited budget, but Penny invested at least $21,000 in the project. He doesn't mind.

"It's a no-brainer that this will bring us a lot of sales," he said. "We're going to have an entire two-hour show about us - all about our smoker. It's a good investment."

Penny had 16 to 20 employees working on the smoker and trailer day and night, sometimes until 3 a.m. And throughout the whole thing there were cameras catching their every movement.

"We have film crews that follow us around," Penny said. "When they see you talking to an employee, they jump in. We really don't even notice they are there. We don't pay attention. We focus on what needs to be done."

The project started on Aug. 20 and ended on Friday. On Saturday, the trailer was unveiled at Shadyside Park and presented to Blindog's Outlaw BBQ Gang.

The Gang is led by Drew Grega, better known as Blindog, and includes his wife Becky, 53, and daughters Lindsay, 23, and Jennifer, 21. Blindog, 55, of Alabama, has been competing in barbecue contests for 12 years and attends about a dozen each year.

In November, he and his family will get to take the super-trailer down to Douglas, Ga., to see how well they do in a competition.

"We're hoping the new rig will help them win the competition," said Jennifer Darrow, executive producer for High Noon Productions. "It's very functional for (Blindog) as well as amazingly eye-popping."

While the trailer was being built, though, the family hung out outside of Southern Yankee's building on Chase Street, but was left in the dark about the trailer.

Blindog and his family were not allowed to see it until it was completed and presented to them on Saturday.

"All I've been doing here is cooking lunch every day," Blindog said on Thursday as he rubbed his homemade seasoning - "Blindog's miracle dust" - on several slabs of ribs. "We're not allowed in the building. We have to walk around the building."

"It's like an extreme make-over," Becky said excitedly. "It will be a shock for us too."

"We won't see it till they pull it out," Blindog said. "It will be one of a kind." The family will then get to keep the trailer for future competitions.

Lonnie Hanzon designed all the extra features that make the trailer so unique.

"We've added all the details. It's like 'Pimp my Barbecue,'" he said, smiling. "I'm the pimp guy. I'm the bells-and-whistles guy."

The trailer has a cooker, three burners, hot and cold running water, a full bar, a television, a DVD and VHS players, surround sound, lighting, a dart board, and the list of amenities goes on.

Hanzon said the trailer even has Blindog's monogram burned into the floor, the stools, the walls. And to make it more identifiable as Blindog's, the trailer has a wild West theme and has a 6-by-6-foot banner with a blind dog wearing an eye-patch.

The inside of the trailer was made with the family of four in mind, said Hanzon as he stood outside the building looking like a true artist, paintbrush in hand, wearing purple overalls and his salt-and-pepper hair standing on end.

"The TV is for Becky, so she won't miss her Thursday night show - 'Survivor.' The daughter wanted a hammock, so we put in a hammock. And for Blindog, he loses track of time, so we put in a million clocks," Hanzon said, chuckling. "We try to personalize it as much as possible."

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