By Nancy Luna | OCRegister.com
If you’re a follower this season of Food Network’s “Great Food Truck Race,” you know the last episode was a shocker — even by reality TV standards.
Front runner Korilla BBQ of New York City was eliminated for cheating in an unexpected twist that caught everyone — from the contestants to the producers to the viewers — off guard.
To recap Sunday’s episode, host Tyler Florence looked noticeably shaken and exhausted — telling the truck owners, including Orange County’s The Lime Truck — that he’d had a “long night” prior to Elimination Day.
Presumably we can now deduce that Florence, producers and likely Food Network attorneys were double checking their facts and discussing Korilla’s fate.
In the final minutes of the episode, the New York truck was disqualified for adding their own money to their truck sales.
I don’t know about you, but after the jaw-dropping episode, I had a ton of questions. Did Korilla really cheat? Was it all of them, or just one of them who put money in the till? Had they done it before, and only got caught this time around?
“During the Memphis leg of The Great Food Truck Race, a strong, qualified team made an unfortunate decision and in doing so, left us no choice but to continue the competition without them,” Food Network told me in a prepared statement this week.
The network declined to comment further.
A review of Korilla’s Twitter page since Sunday shows that the team from New York has yet to respond directly to the cheating accusations despite fans expressing disappointment. Here are the two Twitter messages the truck has made about the episode:
“1st Amendment Rights went on a hiatus and won’t be back till Spring. We <3 you guys and will never forget all the memories! #itaintoveryet”
“WE WOULD NEVER CHEAT ON YOU NEW YORK”
