by Gina Scarpa

 

The Amazing Race's Pam and Winnie were just proving that they were a team to look out for in the competition when they were eliminated.  They flip flopped between Detour tasks this week in Botswana and lost a lot of time along the way.  Considering the previous leg was non-elimination, there was no hope for them when they checked in last at the pit stop to see Phil.  We talked to the best friends about their time on the race and the Detour that sent them home.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: You two have been best friends for a decade now. What was it about the other that made you feel they would be a good partner to run The Amazing Race with?

A. Pam: I'm not even sure why we're friends!

A. Winnie: Pam is my only friend, so that kind of limits my options. No, we're always in crazy situations somehow. We'll find ourselves in weird environments and this seemed natural for us to do this together.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: You got off to a good start in the race, but were almost eliminated in France. After that, you did so well in the next four legs. Did you start to feel like you had really hit your stride?

A. Winnie: It's funny because sometimes, you just need a couple legs to get accustomed to how things are going to be. We found our stride and rhythm and we thought we were going to make it to the end.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: You talked about preferring to run the race individually instead of part of a pack, or part of an alliance. Did you feel that forming an alliance would not be beneficial to you?

A. Pam: Yeah, we definitely went into an agreement that we would when it was beneficial for us so that we wouldn't be targeted. We would work with people but we wanted to run the race ourselves and do everything on our own. As you can see, we totally eliminated ourselves.

A. Winnie: We didn't want to align with anyone! We wanted to run ourselves and have these experience ourselves!

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Being in an alliance definitely puts a target on people's backs, but I'm curious as to why no one has focused on Bates and Anthony and Caroline and Jen yet.

A. Winnie: When we first made the U-Turn agreement, we entered it solely because we didn't want to be targeted. We initially brought up Bates and Anthony in the discussion. Because the discussion started with the country girls, they immediately vetoed the idea and were friendlier with a lot of other teams. We decided to go with whatever the group decision was, as long as it wasn't us.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Animals are never good to work with in Detours or Road Blocks. What was the deciding factor in abandoning Braun for Brains in this week's Detour?

A. Winnie: We were at Braun for quite a while before we decided to switch. After we loaded the firewood onto the cart, it took maybe 20 minutes to coax the donkeys and they didn't move. At that point, we were like, "We gotta go!"

A. Pam: We were also hoping by switching early on that other teams would follow suit because their donkeys weren't moving either.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: It seemed Braun ended up being a faster task overall than Brains. How long was the horseback safari ride?

A. Pam: The horseback safari ride was really long. The first time, we spent almost an hour because we had to walk with the horses and it was quite a long way. It definitely took a lot longer.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Considering the last leg was non-elimination, you must've known almost certainly that you were leaving. You handled it all so well though! What was your reaction right after being eliminated?

A. Winnie: Immediately after the race, we were kind of laughing at ourselves. You laugh at mistakes that you do. We had the best time of our lives and we don't have any regrets. We got to go to so many cool places and you can only be grateful.

 

 

The Amazing Race airs Sundays at 8/7c on CBS.

 

(Image courtesy of CBS)

 

 

Follow Gina @ginascarpa