Our Story
The Rack Masters Competitive BBQ Team, consisting of Joan, Duane and Todd Creviston, at the 2015 Windy City BBQ Classic.
Duane and Joan Creviston are a husband-and-wife competition steak grilling team who love entertaining and cooking great food. We enjoy bringing our loved ones together to share our passion.
Creating and growing our community of family and friends is the inspiration — the food we prepare is our love language that brings us together.
Wherever there are good people and great food, there is reason to celebrate. We work to create great recipes we believe everyone will enjoy. Our products are a reflection of our passion: Delicious products to elevate your own “love language” for your family and friends.
Our Humble BBQ Beginnings...
Our BBQ love story began in 2008, when Joan took Duane on a birthday trip to The Great American BBQ Contest in Kansas City. Although we were merely spectators, we were fortunate to meet some of the top cooking teams in the country, and we were awed by the impressive array of smokers, as well as the kindnesses we were shown.
Enter the Grillas BBQ team. Before we knew it, we were ushered into their competition trailer, where they shared their processes of every meat category, including how they made their presentation boxes. Our now long-time friend, David Adams, even asked Duane to deliver their ribs entry to the judging table.
At the awards ceremony, the Grillas placed 1st in ribs, and we were dubbed their good luck charms! We felt like we had front row seats at the a Sammy Hagar concert and got to go back stage and party with him! That was the beginning of our competitive BBQ journey.
The competition bug bit us hard, and we soon started competing on a professional level as Rack Masters Competitive BBQ team with the slogan, “Everybody loves a big rack!”
The original team consisted of Duane, Joan and Duane’s brother Todd, competing out of a small rented trailer.
As our success grew, so did the size and cost of our equipment. Within a few years, we were cooking out of our own 28’ trailer equipped with an open porch, a big kitchen and sleeping quarters.
This hobby was starting to get expensive! To supplement our passion, we started catering. Rack Masters BBQ became an official company and we added “and catering” to our official team name.
A New Rub and a New Passion...
January 6, 2014, was a brutal weather day in Chicagoland: Icy winds, snow drifts blowing across our back yard, -15F with a 29-below wind chill.
Grillmaster Duane decided to take on mother nature and cook some steaks using a new rub recipe he had been working on, codename DC Dust. The result was the best steaks we had ever had. His combo of peppers and savory spices was the perfect blend for bringing out the flavor of the meat.
Duane suspected he had created something with great potential, and he was right. We started using the rub on our brisket and chicken recipes at BBQ competitions, with great success.
By 2019, a new competition format — the Steak Cookoff Association — was becoming popular in the Midwest. We knew how to cook a steak, time to prove it by entering our first steak contest!
Although the field was stacked with some of the best steak cooks in the country, we prepared our entry just like we do at home with a 22 year old Weber kettle named Blueberry, a set of grill grates, and our homemade rub.
Later that day at awards, we finished 5th! Turns out we COULD hold our own with some of the best steak cooks in the country. We went on to finish in the top 10 in our next 5 competitions, each time using nothing but our homemade rub.
January 6, 2014: The genesis of Big Rack Rub.
At the May 2021 Croix Valley Double SCA Cookoff in Wisconsin, (from left) Duane and Joan Creviston, Scott Nardi, Jessica Barnes and Wendy Kassera all had a monster day using our versatile seasoning.
Big Rack Rub is Born...
With so much success right out of the gates, other cooks started looking our way, wanting to know our secrets. So we gave samples of our rub to any steak cooker willing to try it. And those teams also started winning with it!
That’s when Joan suggested that we find a co-packer and bring our product to market. Enter Rack Masters Big Rack Rub, our first “baby,” which was delivered in March 2020.
Of course the simultaneous arrival of COVID meant our launch would be somewhat delayed, but the second chapter of our cooking journey was taking shape!
By fall 2020 we began sponsoring other steak teams who believed in the powers of Big Rack Rub, and they began winning even more often. In fact, one of our sponsored cooks, Scott Nardi of the “Cheese Curd Cartel,” went on to win the World Steak Cookoff using our rub.
Our plates were getting more and more full as we juggled our work lives with competing, catering and getting Big Rack Rub to market. We decided our competition BBQ habit and catering needed to make way for our budding venture.
In 2021 we changed our name to Rack Masters BBQ and started selling Big Rack Rub to the public, along with three BBQ sauces and our signature Oyster CRACKers.
