 38 teams are registered for this year's event, including eight first-time competitors. Henson credits the previous two years' success with a strong retention of teams for this year. The first year we had 28, so most of those teams were here the first year, too. What we hear from these guys, and they travel all over the Midwest, is that Shenandoah as a community is one of the best sites to do a barbecue competition because the whole community just wraps its arms around these teams when they come to town.