TIFTON, Ga. — With his grandfather’s lessons and a little bit of Georgia flavor, Michael Prince is ready to smoke the barbecue competition.

That’s exactly what he plans to do on “BBQ Rig Race,” a new cooking competition show pilot from the Food Network.

The show features four pit masters driving across Texas, stopping along the way to smoke barbecue for celebrity judges and tackle the occasional challenges, culinary curve balls thrown at them along the way.

The winner gets $10,000 and the knowledge that the state of Texas has put its seal of approval on their barbecue.

But while the show takes place in Texas, for Prince it started in Tifton.

That’s where he learned barbecue from his grandfather, Tvester “Tusome” Prince.

“He’d be in the backyard, cooking ribs and making crackling and I’d be right there beside him,” said Prince.

Prince, who graduated from Tift County High in 1987, has been a stand up comic for the last 18 years. A few years back, he decided to add professional barbecuer to his resume.

“I saw some barbecue contests going on and I thought, ‘I can do that,’” said Prince. “I kind of took the tools my grandfather taught me and we’ve been doing barbecue for the last five, six years.”

He named it in honor of his grandfather, Tu Bones BBQ, and set out to barbecue competitions across the country.

He didn’t believe it at first, when the Food Network reached out to him about the show, but after spending a week in January driving across Texas, he believes now.

While Prince used what he learned from his grandfather, he also utilizes what he learned from his grandmother, Lillie B. Prince. She’s the one who taught him how to make a peach cobbler.

“I love peach cobbler,” said Prince. “A lot of the things I do are Georgia. A lot of Georgia flavor is in the show.”

That’s all the way down to the sauce he uses in the show.

“It’s a Tifton, Georgia sauce,” said Prince. “Texas barbecue and Georgia barbecue are similar, but you’ve got to know the secret to combining them.”

Prince is hoping the pilot gets picked up for a full season and that he’s involved with that season.

But either way, he’s got plans for the future.

At least two of his barbecue sauces—Tu Bones BBQ #29 and Carolina Sauce #22—are tentatively heading to Walmart in the fall.

The first pilot episode of “BBQ Rig Race”—the appropriately named “Meat in the Heart of Texas”— airs 2 p.m., Saturday, May 13 on the Food Network.

There will be encore showings as well, one on the Food Network at 5 p.m., May 18 and two on The Cooking Channel at 8 p.m., May 16 and midnight on May 17.