by Gina Scarpa

Last night, on The Amazing Race, the final five teams traveled to Estonia, where Gary and Matt were forced to complete a Speed Bump after checking in last at the pit stop during a non-elimination round.  Between starting off four hours behind the first team, missing important details in the clues, and having difficulty finding the places they needed to go, it was a recipe for disaster.  Gary and Matt arrived at the mat last for the second leg in a row and, this time, were eliminated from the competition.  Today, they spoke to RealityWanted in an exclusive interview about their experiences on the show.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What made you decide to try out for The Amazing Race?
A. Gary: We both have been fans of the show from the beginning.  We watched it for many years.  Matt was never old enough so he finally was old enough and we said, “Let’s do this.”  We sent in a video and filled out an application.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: We didn’t see you two working with many other teams.  Were you sharing information with anyone?  Are there teams on the race that you are close to?
A. Gary: At times, you share information to get through a certain situation.  We probably grew a little closer to Brian and Ericka.  We were put together a couple times.  We grew close to them.  However, from the beginning, we just wanted to run our race and that’s what we did.  

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: When you were leaving the Pit Stop, were you worried that you were 4 hours behind the first team?
A. Gary: Oh yeah!
A. Matt: We were very worried because we could’ve had another leg right there in Sweden.  We had no idea that we were leaving.  When we saw the ferry and that we would have the whole day to relax, it was nice.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Knowing that you had a Speed Bump to deal with, did you have a strategy going into this leg about how to survive it?
A. Gary: Not really, we just knew that we had to run a near perfect leg with the teams that you’re up against.  You have to do well plus somebody has to falter.  If somebody doesn’t falter… and it turns out that it was a short leg… it’s hard to make up that time.  The speed bump wasn’t difficult, it was just time consuming.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: How did you end up finding the clue in the garden?
A. Gary: We saw the clue box after we went in.  We were around by the tower then headed to the garden, and I think somebody pointed it out to us.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Was there ever a time during that last leg when you sensed that you were leaving?
A. Matt: We knew we were coming from behind after the Speed Bump and we were going to need a miracle in order to have a chance.  When we showed up at Detour, and saw that no one was there, we knew that we were in trouble.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What kept you going on the race, when you knew that the odds were against you?
A. Gary: With the race, you really can’t ever give up.  You don’t know.  Somebody’s cab could’ve broke down, somebody could’ve gotten lost, anything can happen! 
A. Matt: Somebody could’ve lost their passport…
A. Gary: You don’t give up.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: How did being on The Amazing Race change your relationship with one another?
A. Matt: It’s grown by leaps and bounds.
A. Gary: What you saw on the race was real.  We came together real well, we had a great time together, and it has carried over into our lives back home.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Would you two like to keep traveling together and is there anywhere specific you’d like to go?
A. Matt: I’d love to go to New Zealand.
A. Gary:  That could be on my list very easily.  Neither one of us have done much international traveling, except for my business trip to Canada.  This really opens your eyes as to how easy you can get around the world, even with all the obstacles and road blocks and things like that that come with international travel.  It really opens your eyes to doing something like that.


The Amazing Race airs Sundays at 8pm ET on CBS.

(Image courtesy of CBS)

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