The “Great Food Truck Race” on Food Network has always been smitten with Southern California competitors.

This season is no different. The show, which debuts Sunday night, features the owners of Bigmista’s Barbecue & Sammich Shop and Bigmista’s Morning Wood, both in Long Beach. The barbecue restaurants are run by husband-and-wife team Neil and Phyllis Strawder, best known for their signature wood-smoked brisket.

In the opening episode, the contestants are involved in a funnel-cake eating contest at a Los Angeles theme park.

“I learned a really big lesson, and that was – I never want a food truck. It is really hard work,” Neil Strawder said during a phone interview Tuesday.

Strawder, a familiar face in the competition barbecue circuit, said show producers contacted him earlier this year to be on the show. Due to confidentiality agreements, he couldn’t talk about the challenges he and his wife faced.

But he did say the competition was a “fun experience” because he met a lot of great people, including show host and celebrity chef Tyler Florence.

“Tyler was great. We built a rapport,” Strawder said.

Local food concepts have done well after a stint on the Food Network reality show. Orange County’s Lime Truck won the “Great Food Truck Race” in 2011. At the time, it was operated by Daniel Shemtob and chef Jason Quinn.

Quinn left the truck soon after to open his first restaurant, The Playground, in downtown Santa Ana. It remains one of the most critically acclaimed dining spots in Orange County.

Shemtob eventually opened a brick and mortar version of the Lime Truck dubbed TLT Food, which serves gourmet street food. He has locations in Irvine, Newport Beach, Westwood Village and Pasadena.

Other food trucks that have competed in Great Food Truck Race include Orange County’s GD Bro (Season 6), Crepes Bonaparte (Season 1) and Seabirds (Season 2). GD Bro Burger has brick and mortar locations in Santa Ana and Signal Hill. Seabirds operates at The Lab in Costa Mesa and plans to open another location in Long Beach.

Strawder is hopeful for similar success as he builds his barbecue brand. He and his wife are looking at “branching out’ and opening a new concept.

The fame comes more than 10 years after Strawder left the banking business to become a barbecue pitmaster. In 2004, he was inspired to smoke his own meats after watching Alton Brown smoke pork butt on “Good Eats.”

But his first batch was “awful,” he said.

He turned to various food websites for guidance – eventually learning much of what he needed through the site, The BBQ Brethren. Once he perfected his smoking techniques, he quit his job at Wells Fargo and began selling his meats full time at various farmers’ markets in the greater Los Angeles area. He also catered and competed in barbecue competitions.

In 2014, Pulitzer Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold praised Bigmista’s meats at the Atwater Farmers Market, including his smoked pastrami, pig bacon and brisket. That same year, the Strawders made the plunge – opening Bigmista’s Barbecue & Sammich Shop.

The restaurant, at 3444 N. Los Coyotes Diagonal, serves smoked turkey, ribs, chicken and pork. But the most popular is the smoked brisket, Strawder said. Bigmista’s Morning Wood, which specializes in breakfast foods made with smoked meats, opened a year later in 2015.

Some of the dishes served on the food truck reflect signature items served in the Long Beach restaurants: sweet potato fatty hash, fatty pancakes with candied bacon and fatty grits.

Fans will have to tune in Sunday night to see how the dishes fared against the competition, which includes trucks serving Southern soul, Asian fusion and Italian classic foods.