Tailgate Dreams - You Dream It, We'll Help You Build It Contest

With football season gearing up, we looked to hear more ideas from our customers on how they'd put together an A/V system that would complement the most outrageous tailgate spread. That's how we came up with our "You Dream It, We'll Help You Build It: Tailgate Dreams™" contest.

Bruce Feldman, Senior Writer for ESPN The Magazine and the author of Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting, selected the two finalists from among all eligible entries.

Bruce also chose the overall Grand Prize Winner. "Both are amazing projects," Bruce said. "Michael and Scott have each shown an incredible amount of creativity and ingenuity." Ultimately, Bruce selected Michael's 17-foot BBQ grill trailer system for the sheer originality and inventiveness of the project.

The two finalists each won the products selected in their entry, along with access to Crutchfield Product Support Specialists to help them execute their described installation. As the Grand Prize winner, Michael Seville also won a $1,000 Crutchfield Gift Card.

Read the full contest rules.

Our winner – Michael Seville's 17-Foot Barbeque Grill Trailer System

Michael's description of the project:

Growing up, my family was always in the concession business. One of my father's buddies came across a 10-foot long galvanized propane tank and thought it would be perfect for the large grill my family needed for its business. My dad and a few friends went to work cutting and welding and then found a suitable trailer to mount the tank to when it was done being turned into a grill. My family used the grill for 15 years or so like it was. My dad passed away when I was 17 and he left me the grill and the concession business, which I continued for 8 years after he passed on. After I closed down my family business, the grill sat around for years behind our church getting more and more decrepit from the Florida sun and rain. I have been trying to get motivated for a while now on rebuilding the grill and making it much nicer than it ever was before. That's when I was browsing my favorite web site, Crutchfield.com, and came across the "You Dream it We'll help you build it™ — Tailgate Dreams" contest. I immediately began to think about how awesome it would be to rebuild the old grill for tailgating at the Tampa Bay Bucs games. I go to most of the games with my friends Dan and Becky. With some encouragement from my wife Janelle, I began to plan out my system and submitted the details to Crutchfield. I was shocked to learn a few weeks later that I had been selected as one of the finalists! Woo hoo! I was literally dancing around at work that night telling people about the project after my wife Janelle called to tell me I was selected.

I went to work quickly and quickly found out I was in for much more than originally planned. I knew that my old trailer had some surface rot. That wood would have to be replaced before I could even think about adding the car audio and the video screen. What I did not know was that the trailer was pretty much full of rotten wood to the core and would have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

I began with a complete tear down, bringing the trailer down to the bare deck and grill. At this point my good friend John Kruger really stepped up and helped me tear into the project. I brought the trailer over to my father-in-law's house to use his engine hoist to remove the 1000-pound grill off the trailer. We then returned to John's house to finish the tear down. After completely removing the wood, we had another surprise waiting for us. A 3-foot section of the frame had significant rust and would need some welding before we could begin the build up! urggg!

Frame now repaired, we began the build-up of the trailer. You can't imagine the amount of hours that went into getting the base of the trailer rebuilt and the new deck put on and ready to receive the grill. I constructed some new mounts for the grill and called my buddy John to meet me at my in-laws to put the tank back in place. Six hours after arriving there we finally had the grill securely in place and ready to return to my home.

John and I went over the plans for the build-up and made some adjustments as needed. We first built the front section that will house the deep cycle marine batteries as well as other equipment for the grill. Like everything else, this took a bit longer than planned and we were running out of time to complete the project. The timeline issues led me to take the last five days off from work so we could get this done on time.

John and I went to work cutting and assembling the final cabinet that would house all of the audio/video gear. John kept working on the build while I started building the sub enclosure and pre-mounting and fitting the gear. After many late nights and long hours we finally had everything together and cranked it up on the day of our deadline. WOOHOO! I can't begin to tell you how happy I am with the end result. The system sounds amazing! The picture on the Samsung TV is even better than expected. I've only shown this project to a few people so far, but the reaction has been consistently jaw dropping! I love the look on the faces of people who see it. I even had a buddy bring me a whole beer tap set up and say, "Here you go! This thing calls for a beer tap." Thanks for the donation Kevin!

The story really doesn't end here because I keep coming up with new ways I plan to use the trailer in addition to Tampa Bay Bucs and Florida State games. I'm also planning a long list of audio/video upgrades and party fun stuff like karaoke. So really, this project has just begun!

—Michael Seville

Devoted Car Audio and Tampa Bay Bucs Fan

What Michael wins: As the Grand Prize Winner, Michael wins a $1,000 Crutchfield gift card. He also gets to keep the products he selected in his entry for being a finalist.

Michael's Photos

Dream Support℠ — Michael's Crutchfield Advisor

"It's clear that Michael's put a tremendous amount of time and effort into this project — and it's paid off. Congratulations on a job well done — and enjoy your next tailgate!"

—Doug, Crutchfield Advisor

Michael's Gear:

Runner-up – Scott Handel's 21-Foot Bluebird Bus Rutgers Tailgate

Scott's description of the project:

The objective for the design of our tailgate system was to have a state-of-the-art, portable system that can be mounted on our bus during the Rutgers football games, but also be small enough to fit inside the minivan for the occasional vehicle tailgate. One major consideration that went into our product selection, construction and installation was that we wanted to keep the design compact, sturdy and as light as possible, enabling the pre-tailgate setup to be as quick and easy as possible by only two people. The final dimensions of the cabinet (36" high x 47 ¼" wide x 11 ½" deep) were pre-determined before the build and equipment selected to fit within the cabinet.

With these requirements as our design basis, we chose products based upon overall weight (TV was significantly lighter than other models considered), size, and ease of installation (using a sound bar vs. a separate receiver/speakers set-up). We mounted the satellite receiver box inside the cabinet by using mounting bracket spacers that provided the clearance required to hide the box behind the TV for a clean and neat appearance. All components are internally wired in our cabinet with only a coaxial cable feed to the satellite dish and a single power cord to our portable generator extending outside the cabinet. We used standard-size building materials and paid particular attention to the component spacing requirements within the cabinet to enable access to all of the hook-ups. We also ensured the doors to the cabinet could close while protecting the components during storage. In some cases, clearances and tolerances of 1/16" were factored into the design so, for example, the digital picture frame didn't hit the TV when the doors are closed, but allowed enough clearance for the satellite box to be hidden behind the TV while enabling the TV to be tilted if necessary during viewing.

—Scott Handel

What Scott wins: As a finalist and contest runner-up, Scott wins the products he selected in his entry.

Scott's Photos

Dream Support℠ — Scott's Crutchfield Advisors

"Scott's enthusiasm was matched by his impressive installation work on this project. It's always fun to see a customer take a unique idea from conception to completion."

—Sam, Crutchfield Advisor

"Careful planning and equipment selection was key to having everything work so well together. Scott and friends made a real 'magic bus.'"

—Joel, Crutchfield Product Support

Scott's Gear: