Kansas City, Mo. ? Mark Sanders heard about a new barbecue competition while watching television three decades ago.

He borrowed a smoker and joined a dozen other cooks in the parking lot in Kansas City’s West Bottoms area.

He would win the amateur division of the first American Royal Barbecue for his sausage, the 85-year-old said.

The competition, which is taking place this weekend, now attracts 500 teams and is considered the biggest barbecue competition in the world.

Kansas City Barbeque Society executive director Carolyn Wells calls the event’s success “Bar-B-Karma.”

Teams from as far as Germany, Australia and Jamaica will compete to win top-of-the-line smokers and cash prizes of up to $12,500.

Wells said Kansas City’s regional blessings, barbecue heritage and late-season timing have all fallen into place since the first barbecue in 1980. “It was the beginning of the evolution — and the evolution has kind of been on steroids,” Wells said. “I mean, we never dreamed ….”

Paul Kirk of Roeland Park was there for the second American Royal barbecue. The self-proclaimed “Baron of Barbecue” has since written multiple books and teaches barbecue classes all over the country.

Dan Grosko of Kansas City, Kan., will cook at the Royal for the 26th time this weekend. Grosko said as prize money increased, so did contestants’ quality of equipment and level of seriousness.

Big-time teams have corporate sponsors and smokers worth thousands of dollars. Barbecue judges are specially trained and certified. The sport has been the subject of TV shows.

Barbecue contests have become wildly popular across the country — but nowhere more than Kansas City, Wells said. “It’s got its own identity,” Wells said. “It’s not easily replicated.”

Wells said Kansas City is the crossroads for the country and locals cook almost all meats.

Wells calls the Carolinas “the cradle of American barbecue” and Memphis the “undisputed pork barbecue capital of the world.” The entire state of Texas, of course, calls itself a barbecue capital.

Kansas City is the “melting pot.”