Sixth in the world.
I keep typing that sentence and looking at it. In February I had never competed in anything involving a cigar. On the last weekend of August I was sitting at the World Final of the Cigar Smoking World Championship in Dubrovnik, Croatia, with a Lincoln, Nebraska flag's worth of people behind me, and when it was over my name was sixth on the board — 2 hours and 9 minutes on a single cigar, no relights, against the best slow smokers on the planet.
For a rookie season, I'll take it. Honestly? For any season, I'll take it.
How the run started
If you're new here: the Cigar Smoking World Championship is a real international competition, and it's closer to a precision sport than whatever you're picturing. Every competitor gets the same cigar and two matches. No relights. Keep it burning longest and you win. It punishes greed, it rewards patience, and it is absurdly hard to do well.
I entered my first qualifier this year on something between a bet and a dare, and the season turned into the story I told on the campaign page: a rookie posting the best official time in America — 2:21:57 on the CSWC leaderboard — holding it all summer, and then watching the U.S. title get decided at the season's last qualifier in Florida, an event with nothing left on the calendar for me to answer. That one still stings, and I've made my peace with the sting. The leaderboard time stood: best in the country. And the World Final invitation was real.
Lincoln sent me
Here's the part of this story I care about most. I didn't get to Croatia on a sponsorship from some cigar conglomerate. I got there because Lincoln and Omaha decided a 21-year-old rookie repping Nebraska at a world championship was worth actual money.
Apiary Social Club in Omaha and Capital Cigar Lounge in Lincoln presented the run — two rooms full of people who treated this like a hometown athlete going to a title fight, because that's what it was. And the supporter wall filled with names: friends, clients, regulars from the lounge, people who bought the "not a donation, a trade" pitch and backed it with real dollars. Every one of those names is still on the wall, and every trade is being honored — that was the whole deal.
You don't forget who funded your first world final. You just don't.
The final itself
Dubrovnik at the end of August is almost unfair — a walled city on the Adriatic, and inside it, the strangest, most focused sporting event I've ever been part of. The format at the final is the same as everywhere: same cigar, two matches, no relights, longest burn wins. What's different is the field. Everyone in that room won or placed in a national qualifier. There are no casual entries at a world final.
My cigar went 2 hours and 9 minutes. Sixth place in the world.
Was it my best time ever? No — my American leaderboard time is still 2:21:57, and every competitor will tell you that every cigar is its own animal, on its own night, in its own room. Sixth at the World Final, in my first season, as the guy who walked in from Nebraska? I told people at the start of this that I was going to win it. I still am. Now I know exactly what the room at the top looks like, and I know my number was twelve minutes off the podium conversation, not a mile off.
The rookie year ends: best official time in America, sixth in the world. The scoreboard can say what it wants — I'm counting that as a season Nebraska should be loud about.
What happens next
Three things, in order:
The trades get delivered. If you're on the wall, your NVAR Studios value — the sessions, the coverage, the credits — is being scheduled now. You'll hear from me directly if you haven't already.
The recap film. I shoot for a living; you didn't think I went to Croatia without cameras. The full recap film from the run — Lincoln to Omaha to Dubrovnik — is in the edit. Presented by Apiary Social Club and Capital Cigar Lounge, exactly as promised.
Next season. The best time in America came out of a first season. The gap between sixth and first is now a known, measurable thing, and I have a year to train for it. Nebraska's run isn't over — it just has a baseline now.
Thank you, Lincoln. Thank you, Omaha. Sixth in the world, and we're just getting started.
— Nvar
NVAR Studios is a commercial photo & video studio in downtown Lincoln — the work lives here, and the story of the whole run lives at nvarstudios.com/cswc.
