by The Union Leader

LOUDON

IT TAKES A LOT of food to feed more than 100,000 hungry race fans, and Josh Davis of Smoke Shack Southern Barbecue is hoping to do his part at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend.

"We've got 5,000 pounds just of pulled pork to sell," says Davis, who says that doesn't take into account the thousands of Cajun sausage, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken and sweet potato and french fries that will round out the fare he'll be offering from 10 different vending stations inside the speedway.

"Being organized and prepared is the key. Sunday we have just four hours of real big business and you have to be ready. One person can come up for an order, and the next thing you know, there are 50 people standing in line behind them," he says.

In order to provide the fast and efficient service the race fans are looking for, Davis will have 55 people at the track Sunday.

Handling big crowds is nothing new for Davis, who was an excessive chef with Compaq Computer in Shrewsbury, Mass., until Hewlett-Packard bought the company in 2000 and laid off more than 8,000 workers.

He decided to become his own boss after that and started up a concession-and-catering business in Attleboro, Mass., specializing in Southern-style barbecue with its emphasis on slow-smoked pork butts.

"I decided that I wanted to do something which wasn't much done in the Northeast instead of trying to compete head-on with other kinds of barbecues. In my off-time at home I would try smoking stuff with different woods and flavors, so it was natural to go in this direction," says Davis.

In 2001, his concession stand was outside the speedway when a track executive stopped to try a pulled pork sandwich. Impressed, the executive invited him to set up inside the track at the next race, and he was soon taking his business to other tracks on the NASCAR circuit: Daytona, Talladega, Richmond and Dover.

In recent years he's cut back on the travel and concentrated on his restaurant-and-catering business, which is headquartered on Route 3 in Boscawen at a former dairy bar he bought nearly three years ago.

"We prepare everything there, even for our new restaurant we've opened in Weirs Beach," says Davis, who lives on Shaker Road in Loudon, a few miles south of the speedway.

The giant cast-iron smoker behind the restaurant is now in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week in order to keep up with the demand for smoked pork and chicken products that are needed for his concession-and-catering business as well as the big NASCAR weekend.

The pork butts are covered with a dry rub and then roasted over a wood fire, which is a 60/40 hickory and apple mix, for 14 hours at 250 degrees, with each smoking cycle yielding about 800 pounds of pork.

"It's important to maintain that same temperature. If it's too hot, the meat dries out and toughens up. If it's too low, it gets mushy," he says.

A typical summer weekend sees his crew catering a dozen parties and that's where his 15 year-round employees play a major role.

"The experienced people are invaluable. They know what needs to be done and how to keep our customers happy," says Davis.

He says the pulled pork he's bringing to the speedway equals 10,000 to 11,000 sandwiches and that the three-day weekend gives him the opportunity to be exposed to 140,000 to 150,000 customers.

"It's a small window of opportunity and you have to be ready to take advantage of that," Davis says. "My heart rate usually goes up a few notches thinking about it. But once the grills are fired up, everything seems to fall in place."

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