The Great Food Truck Race, Season 12: Top Moments

The Great Food Truck Race kicked off in sunny Los Angeles for the Gold Coast season, which Tyler says will be filled with a lot of golden opportunities. "Food is a way of life on the gold coast," Tyler told the teams upon their arrival. "You’ll have to up your game with elegant presentation and culinary craft."

For the first food truck challenge of the competition, Tyler tasked the teams with making hors d'oeuvres fit for a private flight. Unfortunately, Zach, Preslie and Tyson of Eat My Crust felt the heat when they couldn’t figure out how to work the grill. "Our weakness would probably be just lack of knowledge of literally the actual truck," said Tyson. "But I don’t think that’s anything we can’t overcome," Preslie added.

The next stop on the Gold Coast route was Santa Monica, where Tyler set the teams up in a prime location on Ocean Avenue. While shopping for their ingredients, the Mystikka Masala truck was dangerously close to going over their $400 budget but managed to only spend $398. "Bougie on a budget for sure!" they exclaimed at checkout.

Since Mystikka Masala won the hors d'oeuvres challenge and got an hour head start, the Eat My Toast truck team members decided to kill that hour by doing some squats.

The first selling day started off rocky for the Bachelor Kitchen team, especially during their prep. When Tyler came to check on their progress, he was not very happy with what he saw. "This place is a mess," he said. "I gave you this food truck to use, I will take it away from you in two seconds flat. Clean this stuff up, take my truck seriously or I will take it away from you."

With only three hours remaining in day one, Navin decided it was time to pull out his team’s secret weapon: His drag queen personality, Mystikka Masala. "Bringing Mystikka Masala out was the best idea," he said. "People are coming in, we’re selling left and right, honey!"

The remaining teams rolled into San Diego during the second week of the competition and for their first challenge they had to pair up with another team to serve lunch for 60 Yacht Club VIP members. With only a few minutes left during prep, Crystal was very concerned with the small amount of rice that Super Sope made for their entree. “I’m thinking to myself, clearly they have never catered anybody because this little pot of rice, this is not going to be enough,” she said. “Now I’m getting concerned that choosing Super Sope might not have been the best thing for us.”

During week two’s elimination, Stephan sent shockwaves through the competition when he announced he needed to drop out of the race. “Something came up, and I have to go home and take care of it and it’s really out of my hands at this point,” he said. “The boys will still bring home the $50,000,” he continued. “And now we get to split it between two!” joked his brother, John.

The competition started to heat up during week three as the teams headed to Palm Springs. For their first challenge, the teams had 9 minutes to prepare a salad thousands of feet up in the air as they went up an aerial tram. Super Sope was not too excited about this since they all shared a pretty big fear of heights. “I feel like I’m gonna pass out,” said Carina.

As they prepped for the first selling day, Bachelor Kitchen had an explosive mishap. While John was tweaking a few things in the truck, he didn’t realize that he had left all the truck’s buttons on for about 45 seconds, causing the truck to fill with propane. “It blew up in there!” exclaimed John. “Your hair is totally singed!” added Billy.

Tyler surprised the teams during the second selling day of week four by securing amazing parking spots in front of Las Vegas’ popular hotel, The Venetian. Mystikka Masala thought this would be the perfect opportunity to arrive dressed to the nines as a Las Vegas showgirl.

As the teams were busy selling in Santa Barbara, Super Sope was pleasantly surprised with familiar faces. “I have my husband here, Priscilla has her parents, Lindsey’s mom is here,” said Carina. “Being close to home has allowed our families to come buy food at our food truck [and] after seeing my family today, it boosted our confidence.”

The final week put pressure on the remaining teams to sell as much as they could to secure the big win. Since business was a little slow for the Lunch Ladies on the first selling day, they decided to use a different strategy. “We are literally stopping cars in the streets getting them to roll down their window to get them to buy our food,” Jenny said. “We might be the first drive-thru food truck,” added Nisa.

Things got a little more exciting with impromptu acrobatics right in front of the Lunch Ladies truck. “What is happening right now?” exclaimed Nisa.

Mystikka Masala’s luck wasn’t so great either on the second selling day, despite securing a spot right on Hollywood Boulevard. “I’m literally pulling teeth to get anybody to come over here,” said Navin. “We thought this is where all the people are,” added Sarah, “but we didn’t realize they all have places to be and money to spend elsewhere.”