Andrea Acerra gathers her team for a huddle. With heads bowed and arms clasped behind one another's backs, they send up a prayer. They've been training for this moment for months. Just one small error could be the difference between gold and not medaling at all. Acerra, a seasoned vet with two silver and two bronze medals hanging around her neck, leads the nine competitors in one last chant: "Shake and bake!" they yell before taking their positions in the kitchen.

Over the next 30 minutes, Acerra and her crew will cook and assemble 34 orders in a simulated lunch rush in an elaborate fast-food competition. Every two years, Whataburger--a family-owned business that started as a single burger stand in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1950, and now spans nearly 700 restaurants in 10 states--gathers its best employees to compete for bragging rights, cash, prizes, and, yes, medals, in a slyly effective mass training-and-loyalty exercise that masquerades as corporate Olympics. It's called the WhataGames.

To Texans, Whataburger is a cult brand, inspiring the same feelings that Californians have for In-N-Out Burger. But even local pride can't inoculate Whataburger, which expects to hit $1 billion in revenue this year, from the fast-food industry's infamous employee turnover rate, which hovers around 300% annually by some accounts. Whataburger staged the first WhataGames in 1996, thinking that better training would improve retention.

The burger chain is certainly not the first company to host a competitive event in an effort to bolster enthusiasm within its ranks. But you'd be hard-pressed to find one that works as well as the biennial WhataGames, which uses employees' pride in their work to infuse corporate culture in a far-flung enterprise. The company credits its same-store increases for the last 54 consecutive quarters to its rigorous attention to doing things the company way. In other words, exactly what the WhataGames reinforce. Although the privately held chain won't release turnover numbers, John Heiman Jr., who runs 14 franchises, reports that his employee churn has dropped from 900% to 100%.

That explains what the company gets out of the games. It doesn't explain why employees care so much that they'll spend months poring over operations manuals and company history. Certainly, the prize money helps: The top teams split more than $140,000. But the raw emotion on display during the two-day event hints at something deeper.

Acerra, a 41-year-old general manager, and her "kids" from unit 717 in San Antonio, are one of only 16 teams to qualify for this year's WhataGames, in Houston. Their knowledge of menu items, procedures, and Whataburger history has already been put to the test, in a Jeopardy-style quiz show and a matching card game, in which they had to correctly answer such questions as "Grilled chicken must reach what temperature throughout to be properly cooked?" (Answer: 165 degrees.) But it's during the 30-minute What's Cooking? competition--when the hypothetical becomes real--that nerves really start to fray.

As soon as the clock starts, the orders come pouring in. Two judges take turns ordering at the counter while five more circle the drive-through, trying to stump the team with picky requests (a wheat bun toasted on both sides, grilled jalapeños) and large orders. Acerra's group seems ready to accommodate any of the 36,864 possible customizations, but the order screens are filling up fast. "See if he needs help," she shouts to a grill cook. "How we doing on drive-through?"