Dec 2, 2011, Ep 10: Of Mustangs and Atomiums

The Amazing Race 19 Secret Scenes, Episode 10:  Of Mustangs and Atomiums

Undisputable fan favorites Bill & Cathi (pictured) bow out of the race in grace and style while letting us know a bit more about what makes them tick, such as Cathi being the half-full one while Bill is half-empty.  If Bill &Cathi videos will make you too verklempt, trust in Phil as he pulls a fast one on Amani & Marcus at the Atomium Pit Stop or find out what color Andy configures his new Mustang in.  And guess what team knows they’d be winning…if only it weren’t for all those mistakes?  Read on to find out!

Extra Race Footage

Featured Team:  Jeremy & Sandy

Bump in the Road:  We have a through-the-windshield view as Jeremy drives us through some Belgian city and a soundtrack of Sandy telling Jeremy how to drive.  Jeremy immediately gets snippy which causes Sandy to take a different tack and tell him how great he’s doing and that they’re doing good.  She convinces him that he’s heated up for nothing and to relax.  Sandy asks for him to just drive slow.  Jeremy turns right at some street which isn’t what Sandy wanted and their debate begins anew as to where he was supposed to turn.  He continues to drive around while she expresses that they should have just stayed on the main drag.  Jeremy acquiesces and has Sandy direct him so she’ll stop back-seat driving.  Sandy picks up on Jeremy’s sullen mood and begs for him to snap out of it.  He reassures her that he’s fine and that he’s not in a bad mood.  These two…

Featured Team:  Bill & Cathi

Bill & Cathi Look Back:  As Bill & Cathi drive to their final Pit Stop, they discuss the previous legs.  Cathi describes the first leg as horrifying because it took them so long to make sense of the clue and they fell so far behind.  That leg doesn’t accurately represent who they are and their true capabilities so the subsequent legs gave them a chance to show everyone what they’re truly made of.  Bill agrees as he’s proud of what they accomplished during the race.  They were in the mix this leg but things just didn’t work out.  He’s happy with their results considering their age and the fact they’re nearly twice as old as most of the remaining racers.  They hung in even when the tasks were physical and there’s no shame in how they’ve done.

Featured Team:  Amani & Marcus

Lost in Brussels:  Marcus is talking to us while waiting outside a shop as we see Amani interacting with a local inside.  He laments their situation of not understanding the language they’re completely immersed in while traveling in Belgium.  Everyone is human but once different languages are tossed in to the mix, it’s another thing entirely.  Marcus confesses that he’s just tired and hasn’t had much sleep since the three or four hours of sleep he got on the train into Belgium.  He’s exhausted enough at this point where Amani will have to drive even if she doesn’t like that idea.

Featured Team:  Bill & Cathi

Cathi, the Optimist:  While waiting for Bill to finish his Ford Mustang Roadblock, Cathi explains that Bill gets more easily frustrated and can be more of a pessimist.  She is the opposite though so they balance each other out.  It’s up to her to keep the energy up as otherwise Bill can get caught up in thoughts of being in last place.  Cathi always reminds him how well they’ve done and how much they’ve managed to accomplish.  This dichotomy has been part of their entire life together so she’s used to being the motivator.

Featured Team:  Andy & Tommy

A Tough Decision:  On the past two Roadblocks, Tommy admits that on the earlier one, he was slower than Andy probably would have been.  They both wanted to do the driving Roadblock but they’ve realized it’s important to save Andy for the mental Roadblocks so Tommy took on this Roadblock.  Tommy is actually now completely done with his quota of six Roadblocks so from here on out, it’s all Andy.  He figures that with Andy doing the upcoming Roadblocks they’ll be able to make up even more time.  Andy grins and hopes that the next Roadblock involves jumping out of a helicopter or something.

They both are banking on the next Roadblock having to do with fear, since anxiety, humility, difficulty, and memory tasks have been experienced, although Tommy realizes there’s been no eating challenges yet.  Andy thinks they’ll excel if the upcoming challenges are fear- or eating-based.  Tommy is confident if it’s eating as Andy can eat anything.  

Featured Team:  Bill & Cathi

Better Safe Than Sorry:  Cathi explains that her & Bill’s “stopping and checking” is due to them wanting to be sure they’re not going the wrong way.  They stopped three times on the way from Brussels, once to get directions, once to use the Internet, and once more to double-check they were going the right way.  It may have only took ten minutes total, and while you can indeed lose the race in that amount of time, it’s worth doing to ensure you don’t drive six hours in the wrong direction.  It’s a toss-up you have to decide on and since they got lost even heading to LAX at the beginning, their choice was clear.  Cathi admits that she has a terrible sense of direction and hence a fear of going the wrong direction.  Bill has more confidence in that arena but neither want to waste time going the wrong direction.

Featured Team:  Ernie & Cindy

Bill & Cathi on Their Minds:  As Ernie & Cindy drive away from their waffle Detour, Cindy apprises us on the latest team placement status.  Jeremy & Sandy were only minutes behind them at the waffle Detour while Amani & Marcus and Andy & Tommy did the raft option. They didn’t see Bill & Cathi or their car at all when departing though.  She’s surprised they weren’t around and would be even more shocked if they were lost as Bill & Cathi are a strong team and navigation isn’t a problem.  Cindy knows that if Cathi were driving the Ford Mustang she’d knock the challenge out as she’s a superwoman.  Ernie jokes that he isn’t sure if Cathi’s body could handle the stress of the slalom part of the course.  He guesses Cathi could handle the necessary maneuvering for that part but most likely Bill would have to do it.  Although apparently Cathi told Ernie before that Bill drives like an old woman!

Featured Team:  Ernie & Cindy

A Watched Waffle Does Not Cook:  Ernie flips their one of their waffle irons and briefly opens it to check on the cooking waffle but it’s still not good.  They leave their other waffle iron alone and Cindy worries that it’s taking a long time to cook.  They check their heat settings and finally relegate themselves to having to be patient.  Cindy admits that’s hard for her to do at the moment.  She asks Ernie for confirmation and he concedes that waiting isn’t easy for most people.  Ernie just wants a waffle to be done and then begins to hassle the waffle iron to hurry up already.  They realize their waffles aren’t brown like the objective waffle and they are still merely golden.  Cindy advises that waffles aren’t done until the steaming stops.  They have experience making waffles as she can’t eat gluten so to have waffles, they make their own with a special gluten-free mix.  That experience informed their Detour decision as they didn’t know how to make a raft and their track record on floating things is pretty bad.

At the Pit Stop

Featured Team:  Bill & Cathi (last place)

Ending on a High Note:  Phil asks Bill & Cathi if they’re proud of how they ran the race.  Bill affirms that they are as they were never mean to the other teams nor were they mean to each other.  Phil is honestly surprised.  He asks Bill if Cathi was cheering them along the whole time and Bill tells Phil that of course she was, even in the recent bodybuilding competition.  Her positive attitude is how Cathi is and that’s alright with Bill.

Phil asks Cathi if they had the motivation to truly make it all the way to the end.  Was there a drive to actually win or was it about enjoying the ride while it lasted?  Cathi thinks they had a bit of both, especially after managing to survive the first leg.  They had their doubts after that debacle but after a successful second leg, they began to have confidence.  They balanced out that new aggressiveness with their consistent pace that they like to work in.  Phil asks if there’s a secret to doing well on the race and Bill thinks it is about reading the clue and not reading anything into it.  

Featured Team:  Amani & Marcus (fourth place)

Phil’s Fake Out:  Phil smiles at Amani & Marcus and notes they’ve been working hard but the other teams were a lot faster than them this leg.  Marcus admits that is the truth and tells Phil about building the raft alongside Andy & Tommy who quickly beat them at the Detour.  Amani thinks the driving today was what really set them back though as they kept up quite well at the challenges.  Finding the pigeon was definitely a hindrance and Phil laughs that a lot of this leg came down to that.  Marcus laughs that he can’t believe he gets taken out by a pigeon but wouldn’t change a thing.

Both Amani & Marcus give the other teams credit for their very strong performances and ability to stay in the race. They call Jeremy & Sandy grinders as they found a way to always stay one step away from getting eliminated.  Marcus thinks that mentality is what you need to succeed in staying in the race.  Phil praises Bill & Cathi for being unbelievable as they claim to be the old team but their performance says otherwise.  Phil and Amani & Marcus aren’t buying that routine anymore as they race hard.   

Marcus is fine with the fact that a team has to go home as it’s just like football.  Phil agrees and says that somebody wins and somebody loses, and that “today, you’re still in the race as you’re team number four!”  Amani & Marcus do a double-take as they realize Phil has been leading them to believe they were getting eliminated.   As their fate on the race suddenly has new life, Amani & Marcus start to high-five and cheer.  Phil earns a playful yell from Amani as she tells him to stop doing that to them.  He admits he likes messing with them but Amani laughs that she can’t take the pressure anymore.  Phil points out he could see it in their eyes that they wanted to keep going.  Amani definitely does but to me, Marcus sounds tired and while he agrees that he wants to continue, I think part of him was ready to recover.  

Featured Team:  Jeremy & Sandy (second place)

Lessons Learned for Jeremy & Sandy:  Phil is curious what Jeremy & Sandy have managed to learn about themselves and each other.  Jeremy tells him that they’ve both realized they’re leaders and will want to take charge of a situation.  It becomes hard to go the other person’s direction especially when you think you’re right.  They finally have begun establishing trust though and in this leg, it worked out for them.  Phil agrees as it is 10 legs into the race and here they are in second place.  Jeremy & Sandy laugh as they are grateful to keep stepping on the Pit Stop mat.

Phil reminds them of what he said at the beginning in that most of the starting teams would be eliminated by the end.  It’s now the point where it’s only the best of the best that remain.  He wonders if they still think they can win the race.  Sandy knows they can especially after this leg as she’s learning how to best communicate with Jeremy in a positive fashion.  Phil asks what winning would mean to them.  Sandy admits that they’re both competitive people so the victory would be sweet but the real win for them is getting to travel the world.  Neither have seen much of the world previous to this so these experiences are amazing.  

Featured Team:  Andy & Tommy (first place)

Home for the Night:  Andy tells Phil that they were certain Ernie & Cindy were ahead of them as they’d been firmly in the lead these past two legs.  He doesn’t know how he & Tommy managed to get ahead of them.  They attribute a lot of their success this leg to a mapbook that a guy gave them at the start of the day.  Tommy calls it a lifesaver.  After Phil confirms that they are happy with their vehicle prize, he asks if they know where they’ll be sleeping tonight.  Andy meekishly points at the Atomium structure and Phil tells them that indeed they’ll be sleeping inside it.  Andy asks if there are rooms inside it but Phil only replies that it’ll be their home for the night.  Regardless Andy & Tommy are excited as it just gets added to the amazing list of locations they’ve had as rest areas on the race.

After the Race

Featured Team:  Ernie & Cindy

Ernie & Cindy’s Blown Opportunity:  A tired-looking and slightly-annoyed Ernie & Cindy readily admit that they blew this leg.  Ernie tells us that they asked a million people for help and got different answers from everyone.  When they tried to figure it out on their own and decipher the signs themselves, they just screwed up.  Cindy brings up that now Andy & Tommy have won six legs of the race but in her mind, they truly only won three legs without winning by default.

Cindy admits that it’s frustrating to the remaining teams because someone else needs to win a leg and win a prize.  She’s most bitter about not winning the $15K Discover card prize which they lost in the Malawi footrace.  Ernie & Cindy didn’t U-Turn them in that leg because they thought they were good guys but at the end it didn’t matter and Andy & Tommy took the win for themselves.  

Ernie on one hand doesn’t want to race against Andy & Tommy anymore since they’re such a strong team, but on the other hand thinks it’s clear that he & Cindy can beat them.  Cindy figures if they run a cleaner race plus not go head-to-head with Andy & Tommy in a physical challenge or foot race, the victory is guaranteed.  Way to caveat the path to success, Ernie & Cindy!  It gets even more humorous to listen to as they reason that other teams have beat them before and if only they didn’t make mistakes on the race, they would have totally beat them.  

Featured Team:  Jeremy & Sandy

Jeremy & Sandy Still Standing:  Sandy can’t believe there are only two more legs left on the race and that they’re still standing here and in second place.  If they can run the next few legs like they just did, she & Jeremy may have a fighting chance at winning.  Sandy hopes they can get some rest and continue to take things slow and steady.  She’d love to win a leg but it’s only necessary to win that last leg.  She admits that they’re the only team left that hasn’t won a leg yet, with Andy & Tommy winning six, Marcus & Amani winning two and Ernie & Cindy winning two.  Somewhere the math is wrong but the point is still valid.

Sandy believes they’re the underdogs having not won a leg and coming in second-to-last multiple times.  I’d almost compare them to Kisha & Jen but Kisha & Jen managed to always stay middle to front in their placements yet win only the final and most important leg.  Sandy figures no one considers them a threat and everyone is targeting Andy & Tommy.  Both Jeremy & Sandy admit they don’t consider themselves a threat either but they’re having a lot more fun, especially the last two legs traveling in Europe.  

Featured Team:  Amani & Marcus

Marcus Talks Smack:  Marcus laughs as he tells us about the bit of lip-talk going on between he & Amani and Andy & Tommy at the raft construction Detour.  Each was joking with the other that their raft would sink and if one of the teams rafts were to sink, the other would get to eat their crackers (that’s not a euphemism).  Marcus admits it  was the first time on the race where he got to talk smack in a fun way, and he knows nobody really wanted any of the rafts to sink.  It was just fun to mess around with Andy & Tommy.  Smack-talking in stressful competition reminds him of his days playing football as well as that was part of the esprit de corps he had there.

Featured Team:  Bill & Cathi

Bill & Cathi’s One Regret:  Cathi tells us that they really enjoyed meeting all the people throughout the world who were so willing to help them out.  She felt rude that she couldn’t really stick around to talk with them more but it was a race.  But that’s the stuff they enjoy, getting to meet people and learn about their world.  Concerning the race itself, it is definitely much harder than it looked on television.  You don’t realize while watching that there’s a constant lack of sleep, lack of food and always being on the go.  She’s also happy to have learned on the race that she & Bill have a much greater capacity to meet immediate challenges than they had assumed.  They chose a challenge and even if it was hard, they were determined to finish it to completion.  Cathi figures that’s analogous to living life and overcoming obstacles.

Bill explains that he’s a fairly shy person although that may not have come across in the show.  In normal life he would go out of his way to avoid interrupting or cutting someone off with a question.  Yet tonight when they went into a pub which had about 10-15 people in it, as everyone turned to them, he had no qualms about asking for help.  Bill thinks he’s finally overcome that particular personal limitation.  He’s also thrilled to have interacted with people from all stations in life around the world.  

Featured Team:  Andy & Tommy

Customizing the Mustang:  We get a quick look at Andy & Tommy customizing their Mustangs via  a Ford website.  Andy chooses a black Mustang with a vented hood.  The video ends and promises more next week of their customization process.

Hobie Barnes lives in Santa Monica, California after enjoying the hectic Manhattan life for 3 or so years.  He just got back from traveling in Turkey, Italy & Greece and can’t wait to see if the places he visited end up on this season of the race.  When not busy fighting the 405 and 101 freeways on the commute to Burbank, he is patiently waiting for an Amazing Race or Survivor scout to cast him!  He can be reached at <a href=”mailto:hobiewan76@gmail.com”>hobiewan76@gmail.com</a>.

 

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