The five remaining teams roll into Fort Worth, Texas, the beef capital of the world, and assemble in front of the courthouse. After the weekend's competition gets underway, Tyler calls the teams with their Truck Stop challenge: butcher a side of beef and incorporate into a special dish. Unaware of the challenge's steep odds and secret judge "King of Fort Worth" Tim Love (Lonesome Dove), the challenge winner earns $1,000 towards its final tally, an amount equivalent to immunity

The remaining three teams pull into Jonesborough, Tenn., population 5,000. Nervous about how this small town will react to them, the teams meet Tyler on Main Street and realize that this leg of the race will hinge on their sales acumen and food quality. The trucks battle over the crowd assembled for a music festival but keeping their attention proves difficult. In the Truck Stop challenge, Tyler tells the team's to meet him at Old Man Johnson's farm to cook an authentic five-course prairie meal over an open fire to be judged by two cowboy historians from the American Chuck Wagon Association. As a reward, the winning team moves their truck to a greater populated town where they have the chance to beat out the competition.