Topic: Third Place: TAR13 ♥ Andrew Lappitt & Dan Honig ♥

[Kogs]

Names: Andrew Lappitt and Dan Honig
Ages: 22, 23
Occupations: Students
Hometown: Tucson, AZ, Wilmington, DE
Relationship: Fraternity brothers

Life couldn’t be any better for these fraternity brothers. Andrew and Dan met while attending Arizona State University and the last four years have been filled with good times. Some of the Teams refer to Andrew and Dan as “Team Superbad.”

Now they are ready for a life-altering experience. Andrew, a senior, is studying urban planning. He is hoping to make the most of their last year in college before they part ways. His laid-back appearance can be deceiving so count on him to be assertive, hands-on, and ready to take on anything that comes his way.

Dan graduated last December with a degree in Tourism Management. He enjoys bar hopping, sports and all things funny. Dan also loves to travel and hopes to use his extensive global travel knowledge and expertise to get a leg up on the competition.

These two say they can talk their way in or out of anything by cracking jokes and keeping the mood light, and they promise to bring more to the Race than any other Team. Look for them to always keep things entertaining in their own special way.

[puddin]

chalk one up for North!!

[Kiwi Jay]

It was andrew and dan

[georgiapeach]

Now these guys feel like our best friends already--

[puddin]

“Team Superbad" lmao! I love that movie! It's fitting

[Kiwi Jay]

Andrew looks like the guy lol

[patlini]

“Team Superbad" lmao! I love that movie! It's fitting

yes that's it

[Lucky13]

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5g7N9RzXt46Gbg5B1Pf4cVCM6g-oA
If the posted ages are correct, Dan and Andrew are NOT the youngest competitors (as quoted in BVM's press release), Nick and Starr are - they are 22 and 21.

[north09]

chalk one up for North!!

Yeah!! Thanks puddin, but without the skills of this board, I wouldn't have had anything to work with!

I have to show some love for them! 

[puddin]

OMG I so love them! I totally see Dan and Andrew as SuperBad   

[michael]

they seem funny

[puddin]

Dan Honig is the son of Dr. Gordon Honig of Greenville, an orthodontist in Newark and Middletown, and Joy Honig, a teacher.

Dan is out-going and gregarious and loves to travel, his dad said.

“We were always huge fans of 'The Amazing Race,’” Dr. Honig said today. “We love the show. That’s what motivated him to go ahead and try to be on it.”

Dan attended The Sanford School,, where he played tennis and was the state singles champion in 2002, his junior year.

Now Dan is in the managerial training program for Hyatt Hotels in Washington, D.C, after graduating from Arizona State with a degree in tourism management.

Dan declined to speak to The News Journal until he gets permission from CBS.

He and Lappitt are members of Alpha Epsilon Pi.

“Dan is more of the action guy, and Andrew is more of a thinker, a little more low-key, but very funny in his own way,” Dr. Honig said.

His son and Andrew remind him of the buddy teams you can see in Judd Apatow movies such as “Knocked Up.”

Andrew particularly reminds him of Seth Rogan, Dr. Honig said.

The fraternity brothers sent a video to CBS that showed them hamming it up during a mini-'Amazing Race' to 7-11 to buy something by a certain time.

“They pretty much were trying to show the producers who they were, what kind of people they were,” Dr. Honig said.

“I wasn’t surprised when they sent in the video. I was surprised when they called back and wanted another one. They get thousands of videos for this show, and I thought he’d never hear back from them.”

Once Dan and Andrew were accepted, they weren’t allowed to tell their families or anyone else any details.

They left, and the show was taped.

“We were really in the dark,” Dr. Honig said. “We weren’t allowed to know where he was, how long he was in the race. We were called by producers just to let us know that he was safe and that he wasn’t harmed and was healthy.”

Dan hasn’t given his parents even a peep about what happened during the race.

“We’re going to have to watch the show like everyone else,” Dr. Honig said.

He hopes First Staters get a kick out of the situation.

“For someone in Wilmington to be in this show, I think, is a really cool thing for Delaware,” Dr. Honig said. “Hopefully, people will be rooting for Dan knowing that he’s a Delaware boy, born and bred.”

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080819/ENTERTAINMENT/80819023/1114/ENTERTAINMENT

[puddin]

Born for battle
Competition-minded Sanford grad keeps mum on outcome of 'American Race' gig

Mr. Competitive -- otherwise known as Dan Honig of Wilmington, who along with his college roommate will battle for $1 million on "The Amazing Race" this season -- says that if The Sanford School taught him anything, it was that it's OK to lose.

Which is not a hint about how the show comes out.

It's just a fact.

"I'm extremely competitive," Honig says from Washington, D.C., where he's just started a new job as a hotel-management trainee with Hyatt. "I hate to lose."

He's been a sports fan his entire life, and played a lot of tennis, including being the Delaware singles champion during his junior year at Sanford.

"We had a great tradition at Sanford in athletics, and that was my foundation for my competitive spirit," Honig says.

Honig, 23, will compete with his Arizona State fraternity brother, Andrew Lappitt, 22.

Honig is the son of orthodontist Gordon Honig of Greenville and remedial reading teacher Joy Honig of Wilmington.

During the third week of November last year, he noticed on "The Amazing Race" Web site that video applications were due the next week.

He turned around to Lappitt, his roommate at the Alpha Epsilon Pi house, and said, "Hey, you want to go for this?"

"We had no hope of anything happening the way it did," Honig says. "We just wanted to say we did it. I don't like to not try things."

They quickly decided to tape their own "amazing race" -- to the 7-Eleven.

Honig says their video was designed mostly to show who they were: the outgoing and action-oriented Honig and the quieter, more deliberate Lappitt.

"We had to be ourselves," Honig says. "I knew that they would not be interested in a scripted thing with music and all that sort of stuff. I knew that we should just sell our unique personalities."

They slapped the video together, sent it in and promptly forgot out applying.

"I had a lot on my plate," Honig says.

Three months later, as Honig was getting ready to graduate and hit Europe for two weeks with a friend, they got a call back from CBS asking for another video.

"We took them on a tour of the fraternity house and then we went to a bar in Tempe, Ariz.," Honig says. "Andrew was trying to put his moves on a girl, and we had a video of him getting absolutely shot down. It wasn't set up at all. We just asked a random girl. He was using these lame pick-up lines, and I was just looking at him like, 'What are you doing?' You couldn't have scripted that."

The excitement of not knowing
As soon as the frat brothers were accepted, they and all their family members had to sign contracts that they wouldn't tell anyone that Andrew and Dan were on the show. If the contracts are violated, the friends lose any prize money.

The first time anyone was able to publicly acknowledge Honig's and Lappitt's roles on the show was Tuesday, when CBS announced the cast.

Host Phil Keoghan has said that he particularly liked the fraternity brothers, partly because they are such different personalities.

"There's definitely tension between the two of them while they're making decisions during the race," he told Associated Press.

Joy Honig wasn't surprised her son and Andrew were chosen for the show.

"You have to know Danny to know Danny. But, when Danny gets his mind on something, he can accomplish whatever he wants, and Danny loves traveling," Joy says. She's planning a big premičre party at Kid Shelleen's in Trolley Square on Sept. 28, when the show debuts.

Honig and Lappitt left for the show in mid-April, starting at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The race covers 30,000 miles in 23 days to countries including Brazil, Bolivia, Russia, India, Cambodia and Kazakhstan.

But, before they left, Honig and Lappitt had no idea where they were going.

"It's very exciting not knowing what lies ahead of you, what kind of culture you're going to be seeing," Honig says. "The surprise was so much fun. I just wanted to start so badly; I had so much adrenaline."

He's traveled a lot with his parents and on his own, but Lappitt had never been out of North American.

"So again, he was on the opposite side of the spectrum from me," Honig says.

Honig put off a job search while waiting to head out and start filming, but he started dieting and working out every day, losing 30 pounds in the days leading up to the show.

"I wanted to put my best foot forward," Honig says. "And 30 pounds sounds like a lot, but I didn't have anything else to do while I was waiting. I was literally going to the gym every day. It was real easy for me to be motivated by this kind of experience. How can you not be?"

Lappitt, meanwhile, was still in school and working to boot, so he had little time to train.

The hardest part for both of them was keeping the secret, especially when they seemed to disappear from the planet for three and one-half weeks starting in mid-April.

"It was really hard," Honig says. "You're in so many social situations where you'd love to bring up the topic, and you can't. I was very mentally disciplined. And I lied. I made up a complete story about where I was. I told people I was doing Habitat for Humanity in the suburbs of Mexico City."

When he 'fessed up this week, his friends were shocked, amazed even.

"They can't believe my face is plastered across the CBS Web site and I'm going to be in this. It's just complete and utter shock and disbelief," he says.

The pleasure of not telling
On the day the big announcement was made, he was looking forward to going back to work. Nobody he worked with had any idea of the truth, he says.

"The important thing for me was to go about my life in a normal capacity," Honig says. "I got this job at the Grand Hyatt in Washington about five weeks ago. It's a really good opportunity to be with a good company in a good city, and I feel fortunate to have landed the position."

He and his family always liked "The Amazing Race," which is in its 13th season. Honig enjoyed watching people react to the situations they were thrown into, and seeing how the dynamics of the relationships changed. And he liked that it wasn't scripted.

While he can't say much about the filming, he can say, "They never told you what to say. There's so many times you forget that cameras are in your face. The adrenaline is going. You're just trying to get to this place as fast as possible."

While Honig and Lappitt were away filming, the families had no idea where they were.

"We were really in the dark," Gordon Honis says. "We weren't allowed to know where he was, how long he was still in the race. We were called by producers just letting us know that he was safe and he was OK."

Dan Honig seems to enjoy not giving any hints, sort of gleefully enjoy not telling.

"I want people to share this ride with me," says Honig, who hasn't seen any of the show yet. "Not only would it be unfair to CBS to say something, but it also would be unfair to myself and everyone else. It would be like watching a football game on TV when you already know the score. I want people to go into it blindly."

And then he drops another teaser.

"I like trying things to see what happens. If you don't try, you never know," he says. "I tried my best. If it wasn't good enough, so be it."

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080822/LIFE/808220303

[puddin]

[puddin]

Andrew and Dan's TAR 13 Audition

[michael]

 

"go to 711 and buy a slurpee"

haha too funny

[puddin]

My boys!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMnWQ59sT1Q


Watch CBS Videos Online

[puddin]

Even though you both won't add me to facebook, I still love ya 

Slideshow link

[georgiapeach]

Tucsonan, frat brother on 'Race'
Remote Controlled by Gerald M. Gay
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.28.2008

Andrew Lappitt wasn't expecting to hear back from CBS when he and his Arizona State University frat brother Dan Honig submitted their audition tape for "The Amazing Race 13."
Lappitt, who lived in Tucson from 1995 to 2004, wasn't exactly sold on Honig's idea for auditioning in the first place. The video featured the two students on a "Race"-style mission to find Slurpees at their neighborhood 7-Eleven convenience store.
"I wasn't a fan of reality television, so I wanted to get the audition over quickly," Lappitt said in an interview by e-mail. "We didn't think it would get us to Hollywood. We just made it to show our friends and give them a laugh."
Much to Lappitt's surprise, the video earned the frat boys a spot on the series. They will compete against a mother and son, a brother and sister and eight other teams as "The Amazing Race" gets under way at 7 tonight on CBS.
Lappitt has fond memories of Tucson. He graduated from Sabino High School in 2004 and regularly hung out at the Arizona Pizza Company on Sabino Canyon Road with friends.
His parents still live in town, as does much of his extended family on his dad's side. Lappitt lives in the Phoenix area and works as a city planning intern in Mesa.
The show has already wrapped for the season.
"When it was over, all I could think about was settling down and resting," he said. "But it has been a few months so I've recovered and I'm ready to do it again."

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/accent/259479.php

[puddin]

Local's 'Amazing Race' For $1 Million
WILMINGTON, Del. (CBS 3) ―
One local man's race to one million dollars proved to be more challenging than it looked as he went from fan to competitor on the hit CBS show "The Amazing Race."

"It's definitely harder than it looks," said Dan Honig,23, a 2003 graduate of The Stanford School in Hockessin, Delaware. "I know that sounds very cliché to say that, but it's true."

Honig, an admitted fan of the show, participated in the most recent season of "The Amazing Race," which premieres on CBS 3, September 28.

"It's not a vacation, it's a race!" Honig stressed.

The Delaware native joined forces with college buddy Andrew Lappitt, 22,  who he met while attending Arizona State University, to form Team Dandrew.

As part of the show, the two traveled the world out of contact with family and friends as they competed for the $1 million prize money.

"It was very difficult with things happening in different parts of the world and not knowing where your child is," said Joy Honig, Dan's mother.

To follow the guys' progress, tune into CBS 3 Sunday nights to watch "The Amazing Race."

Video as well ....

http://cbs3.com/topstories/Dan.Honig.Adrew.2.827762.html

[puddin]

DAndrew  Gee, I wonder which team they did not get along with during the race

[Coutzy]

Steve and Dave award winners, for sure.

And potential Charla award winners.

[jose]

dandrew always kept it kool (most times) 

[puddin]

Congrats Dandrew, third place overall  :pickle:

[marigold]

An interview with Andrew and Dan:

The Amazing Race's Andrew And Dan Think You Were Rooting for Them

Dan and Andrew seemed to stumble their way into The Amazing Race finale, capitalizing on the epic mistakes of seemingly stronger teams. The fratty duo came in second to last throughout the race. In the finale, they were outraced by a big margin, disappearing for much of the telecast. Their third place finish resulted in one of the funniest finish line moments ever, as they self-deprecatingly acknowledged their numerous fumbles. Dan and Andrew talked with fancast about their underdog experience.

How far behind were you in the final leg?
Dan: Probably about an hour.

At the finish line you alluded to making mistakes in the final leg. What were they?
Dan: We did all our tasks fine. Our major mistake was not getting off the airplane as aggressively as Ken and Tina and Nick and Starr. We got in the first cab instead of scouting them out to see if he knew what he was doing. We just wanted to get out of that airport. We were kind of doomed from there. It was almost like he had no idea where he was going and we were practically driving the car ourselves.

You were the team who made it to the finals without ever winning a leg or even coming in near the lead.
Andrew: We're proud of that.

How do you feel about your underdog status? What was it like when you were watching the episodes?
Andrew: For our friends and family watching, we provided entertainment. They were like, "How the hell did you guys make it this far?" every week. But I don't think we're a bad team or the worst team ever to make it to the final three. We made it there fair and square.
Dan: Yeah. We have this stigma of bumbling and stumbling to the final three. I believe we make our own luck and we did things to put ourselves in that position. Other teams made bigger mistakes. That's the name of the game. To not screw up as much as other racers. And we did that pretty well for most of the race.

It seemed like several times you benefited from the mistakes of other teams. Did you have some sort of mojo?
Andrew: If Dallas hadn't made the mistake with the passport, Ken and Tina would have been eliminated. We beat Ken and Tina.
Dan: In one of the episodes Phil said, "Will Dan and Andrew keep making bad mistakes?" Well, I don't think we did. I think we made great decisions. We didn't go for the fast forward, which two other great teams went for. We didn't lose anything. As much as roadblocks and detours are part of the game, decision making and keeping your stuff is also part of the game. Those are the things that get overlooked by the public.

Dan you had a memorable marching style. Why did you have so much trouble with that task?
Dan: What was going on there was we were there second to Ken and Tina and things were going pretty well and the other teams started showing up and we got to the marching and I knew Andrew would be great at that. But it was a detour. We both had to do it. I overanalyzed what the steps were. I thought it was more complicated than it was. I was stressed out that the other teams were passing us. I looked like a fool. But that's okay. I had a lot of fun with that leg.

What were your best and worst memories of the race overall?
Andrew: The best was going to New Zealand. Just making our way to a country that's so far away from everything. Ir's a place very few people get to go just because of the distance. Not only did we get to go to Auckland but we got to drive three hours through the North Islands down to the coast through green pastures and beach cities. It's hard to believe that a place so incredibly beautiful is on the same planet I live on. Worst experience has got to be in Bolivia. I got altitude sickness before the newspapers were delivered that morning. I thought I might have doomed the team. I couldn't move. I couldn't even stand.Luckily, I got oxygen from the paramedics. It juiced me right up.
Dan: The wrestling to me was so much fun. I was a big fan of wrestling as a kid. Going into that arena and having the crows so excited and doing it really quickly, one of the best on the race. That was my favorite task. In terms of general experience, that second half of the second Russia leg was that sprint to the VDNKh park, the general euphoric feeling if blowing by Ken and Tina on that mat because we never passed a team like that before in that fashion.

Are you back on campus now?
Dan: No. I graduated a year ago.
Andrew: The show wanted us to look like we were in college. Just for kicks.
Dan: When we applied we were both still enrolled. So it wasn't false.
Andrew: We knew that's what the race wanted. So we gave it to them.

What moments do you wish America had seen that ended up on the cutting room floor?
Dan: The final episode, it cut off as I'm on the zip line going down. The next time we were shown we were coming onto the finish line.
Andrew: We did every single task that was given to us. They chose not to show it for some reason, which we are a little disappointed in.
Dan: They edited the whole show where teams who were hours behind looked like they could win. So why couldn't they do that in the final leg? We had this grand strategy. It's in the extra videos. I wish they'd showed it because it was genius. If we got to the recreation center first or second, we were going to wait for the rest of the cabs to get to the area because I knew it was a rural area and there were not a lot of cabs around. While the other teams were busy doing their tasks, I would have paid their cabs to leave. So they would have been stranded and we would have won the race. But we got there last so our grand strategy was irrelevant.
Andrew: I can tell you that most people who were watching last night would have wanted to see a win come from us. We were the one team that did not look promising at all. I think the most exciting thing would have been for us to blow the other racers away. Fifteen minutes in to the episode you already knew we were done. It wasn't very exciting. The underdogs are always loved by the public. Unfortunately since Nick and Tina and Ken and Starr were so close, they decided to focus on that.

Link: http://thebiz.fancast.com/2008/12/the_amazing_races_andrew_and_d.html

[georgiapeach]

I enjoyed meeting these guys--they have a great gift of being able to laugh at themselves as well. And third place is AWESOME--think of the journey from applying right through all 11 legs--wow!

I believe there was also a problem at their zip. Dan said one of them got stuck part way across the zip and rescue boats had to come and help unstick them...


oh yeah and they got a 40 minute time credit for that too...

[puddin]

I enjoyed meeting these guys--they have a great gift of being able to laugh at themselves as well. And third place is AWESOME--think of the journey from applying right through all 11 legs--wow!

I believe there was also a problem at their zip. Dan said one of them got stuck part way across the zip and rescue boats had to come and help unstick them...


oh yeah and they got a 40 minute time credit for that too...

Oh how kind of them to give a time credit! LOL!
What would have happened if another team came to the final mat ahead of Dandrew in that time frame? Would they be told to stand to the side?

[marigold]

An interview with Dan and Andrew:

Exclusive Interview: Andrew and Dan, from 'The Amazing Race 13'

Andrew and Dan took a lot crap this season on The Amazing Race.  To be fair, they were, at times, an easy target.  The frat brothers from Arizona State University entered the race as the de facto comic relief, and they generally delivered on that promise, even if it wasn't always of the intentional variety.  Andrew and Dan, despite all odds, managed to finish third on The Amazing Race 13, a feat that for many race viewers remains incomprehensible.  Nonetheless, there they were, against Nick, Starr, Ken and Tina in the final leg.  Earlier this week, we got the chance to speak with Andrew and Dan about their time on the race.

Hey this is Oscar Dahl from BuddyTV, and I am here with Dan and Andrew from the Amazing Race. Dan, Andrew--how are you doing?

Dan and Andrew: Doing awesome! Excellent

So, how did it feel watching that final episode last night?

Dan: That final episode, was um, depressing. I was disappointed that they didn't show us completing our tasks, which we did. And we weren't as far behind as it would look, so that was a bummer. But the sense of accomplishment we felt crossing that finish line was definitely joyous. But we were disappointed with them cutting us out of most of the episode.

Andrew: It was the only time in all eleven episodes that I was truly disappointed in what I saw. You know those other teams that would make fun of us or whatever here and there, whatever I don't care. I'd laugh along with that. I never got mad at anyone for saying anything about us. But I was really surprised last night at what I saw, I mean fifteen minutes and it was over. Everyone knew we weren't going to win or even get second place. It was a real bummer. But it is what it is.

How badly did your cab driver mess up at the beginning of that last leg? Would you two have been close given how well you did in the challenges?

Dan: Our cab guy, just, you think Portland, Oregon...a place you wouldn't anticipate any cab blunders. Kind of an Americana type city, and it's not a huge city either, anticipating taxi problems in that rural of a place was not something we thought about. Obviously, that could happen in NYC or Chicago or whatever, but we didn't foresee it and we just...Ken and Tina and Nick and Starr were aggressive right out of the airplane, they got ahead of us and caught a bus right before us leaving the terminal to the concourse. We were just frustrated. We were frustrated they had this lead early and jumped in the first cab, without consulting with the guy thinking he would knew what he was doing, unfortunately that sealed our fate from there on out, and put us at a severe disadvantage. After taking taxis for over three weeks in other countries, the last thing we thought about was going back to the states and facing a bad cab driver. We didn't come up with any strategies about finding a good cab/cab driver, and we picked a sub-par cab driver. And that's our fault and that's the reason why we weren't in the race. Despite already being behind at the airport from them, I think we could have caught up if we had a more efficient cab driver or someone more reliable, who knew their way around Portland better.

Andrew: We realize that's the number one excuse in Amazing Race lore, "Oh, we lost because of our cab driver."  So, I don't want to pin it on that. But it was a factor, but we made the decision to get in the cab and that was our own wrong doing.  Before the leg I said we needed two things to happen: we needed to run a perfect leg, which went by the wayside within minutes of landing in Portland, and Nick and Starr and Ken and Tina needed to trip up. Which they did not, they all ran pretty strong legs, as you saw last night. Were we going to win with a good cab driver? Probably not. But we would have been in it to the end, and obviously at that point anything can happen.

Even coming into the season CBS had pegged you guys as the comic relief, you were going to be the goofy frat guys -- were you happy with how you were portrayed throughout the season? Was there anything that was edited out you wish they would've shown more of?

Andrew: I mean, we put on a great show.  We were very entertaining, we cracked a lot more jokes than we thought we did.  They put a lot more jokes in there, and I was very satisfied with that. Whenever I watch with friends or family the whole room would be erupting in laughter due to our antics and that's what they wanted. I know that's what they wanted and that's what we were giving to them.

Dan: I think that our moniker was "they bumbled and stumbled their way into the final three." Yeah, we made mistakes and it appeared that way of sorts and people kind of focus on the labels they have of teams and don't want to steer away from what they're kind of spoon fed on TV, so a lot of things got overlooked. I thought from a physical point of view we didn't get any credit.  If you look at Kazakhstan, I beat an NFL football player, a marathon runner, and a couple guys supposedly in great shape.  I blew them all away in a running race. Did the flour competition just as well as Dallas and Kenny, did the wrestling as one of the best. I was hoping for more physical challenges and I thought that would have helped us, but they were mostly mental based, which I think helped a lot of other teams. We were really hoping for more physical challenges.

What are you two going to most take away from your experience on the entire race?

Andrew: Dan and I like traveling, and traveling was pretty much Dan's major in college, I love it too, I always wanted to travel the world, but I never got to really go anywhere growing up. I think we're just very grateful for going to so many different places, some of the places we went to - Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Bolivia - those are not mainstream places like London or Paris or Germany.  Places people usually don't go, we got the opportunity to go there, so we're very grateful to that. I remember talking to other teams on the season, "Oh, I wish we would've gone to Paris," or "I wish we could have gone to London."  And it's, like, anyone can go to those places any day. London is like a 6, 7, 8 hour plane trip from New York City.  We went to places that are so under the radar that no one ever talks about or sees at all, so we're very grateful for going to such places. They were just so unique, so we were just very gracious.

Dan: Just more generally, Andrew and I did a little of everything on the race. Andy and I completed every road block and detour in the Amazing Race this season, so that's a nice little feather in our cap. We barely made flights, we found our way on to flights, we got saved by a non-elimination, we did a speed bump. I feel like we did a little bit of everything on the race, which was kinda cool. So, that was neat, and we got to finish the course, see the whole race, and I was really appreciative of that.

So, do you two have any big plans for the future?

Dan: I don't know.  A Dandrew spin-off show?  Just a show of us doing road blocks and detours all day.   We had fun adding our own creativity into everything. I work - I am in a hotel manager program in Washington DC, not exactly my line of work as Andrew said - I'm more of an international travel and tourism. It's not everyday you get to do a show that's right in your line of interest. We'll see what happens with that, and see if I can go more into the area.

Link: http://www.buddytv.com/articles/the-amazing-race/exclusive-interview-andrew-and-25153.aspx

[marigold]

An interview with Andrew and Dan:

Exclusive: Andrew Lappitt and Dan Honig talk 'The Amazing Race'

"Fraternity Brothers" Andrew Lappitt and Dan Honig want everyone to know that no team makes it to The Amazing Race's finale by accident.

Despite committing a litany of mistakes during The Amazing Race 13's eleven legs, the Arizona State frat boys -- Andrew, a 22-year-old student from Tucson, AZ, and Dan, a 23-year-old hotel manager trainee from Wilmington, DE -- were also able to compensate for their errors and surprise many and finish the race in third place behind "Separated Couple" Ken and Tina Greene and "Brother and Sister" Nick and Starr Spangler.

On Monday, Andrew and Dan spoke to Reality TV World about why they disagreed with the "bumbling" and "stumbling" reputation they seemed to develop during the race, and how much, what had significantly disappointed them about the show's finale broadcast, and why they feel the taxis in Portland, Oregon may be the worst on earth.

Reality TV World: They didn't show much of you guys in the second half of last night's episode.  Did you guys actually end up completing the entire final leg or did the producers just send you guys directly to the finish line after Ken and Tina finished in second place?

Dan: We completed everything. We're just as baffled as you are as to why they didn't show it [and] we're pretty disappointed that we completed everything just fine, no problems. I guess because Ken and Tina and Nick and Starr were pretty close they wanted to focus on them.

It's strange because in every other episode teams that have been hours behind have been shown to look like they're just behind. We were about an hour behind, [so] yeah we were significantly behind, but not like ridiculously far behind. Why they didn't show us completing the tasks is a bit baffling.

I'm a little disappointed in that, but we did complete everything.

Andrew: And I'll say, to be honest, most people wanted to see us come in first last night, and I just think that's natural for our audience to think that because we were not a promising team most of this race. We only ran one really good leg, and that was last week. Fifteen minutes into [Sunday's] show, and it already looked like it was over [and] there's no chance. So I don't understand why (pauses) It's like we weren't even racing with them, it's like we were in our own little world! I don't know why they would show that.

I think people would've want[ed] to see us [as] at least competitive, and at least to be trying our best, at least working hard and at least competing with them. So we're a little confused by that, but we don't know as much as they...

Dan: (Interrupting) Yeah, they have their reasons and we respect it, but it was disappointing on our end obviously. So, what're you gonna do?
 
Reality TV World: About how far behind Ken and Tina did you guys end up arriving at the finish line?

Dan: Andrew and I probably arrived around an hour after them. We were significantly far behind and we knew our fate was pretty much sealed. That leg just seemed like we were running in slow motion.

Reality TV World: How did you fare in that memory board challenge? Like I said, they didn't show it on TV.

Andrew: Yeah! That was one thing we wish they showed because we did the memory board pretty well. We were running back and forth, just like you saw Nick and Starr and Ken and Tina doing it.

Dan: Yeah, and I had a strategy that I wish they showed. You look through the pictures, and after we completed a leg [on the board] I would leave the door [on the clue box] open so we didn't have to go back to the same box again to signify "Oh, well we already did that leg on the board," if that makes any sense. We didn't have to keep going to the same box and looking again.

Andrew: It would take several minutes of opening boxes just to find one piece. 

Reality TV World: Over the course of the last leg, was there ever a time when you thought that you could get back into the running, or was your taxi driver really that bad?

Andrew: Well, I'll say this... I don't know if I can say this. Someone wave a red flag... After we got off the zip line (pauses, talks to someone off mic) I mean someone came up to us that works for [The Amazing Race] and said "Listen guys, it's not over guys. This is closer than you think."

So, you know, something tragic could've happened to the other teams so we just kept going. We didn't give up and we just kept going, and I think we did pretty good the rest of the time.

Reality TV World: A lot of the teams we spoke with have said how surprised they were when they realized how important having good cab drivers and good luck was throughout the competition. I take it you both would probably agree with that?

Dan: Yeah absolutely! Luck is part of the game.

Reality TV World:: So, going off of that, do you feel that [bad luck] contributed to you falling behind a lot of the times.

Andrew: There were two things. (pauses) We were not aggressive enough in getting off the flights. Ken and Tina, I think, got in business class of the Lufthansa flight, and Nick and Starr were somewhat sitting ahead of us. There was a bus that went from the gate to the terminal where the taxis and buses come -- you know the concourse -- and there's a bus that takes you there. [So] we get on the bus, and the lady driving the bus, or someone on the bus, says "Oh, I already saw the other teams, they're already ahead. And we were just like "Well, crap. Alright, I guess we gotta catch up."

Then we get into a taxi, and our taxi cab driver was a moron. He didn't know where anything was. (laughs)

Dan: Yeah, it's funny. You think Portland, Oregon -- it's one of the smaller major cities in this country. I'd consider it kind of Americana. And I never thought in a million years that a bad cab driver would happen... We had our worst cab driver experience in Portland, Oregon! We went to Kazakhstan and India and Russia, and the guys who knew the least where in the least expected places.

It was unfortunate, but you know, that's the way it goes and it was our fault. I think the reason we got into that cab was because, like Andrew said, we just felt frustration of having these teams pass us. We wanted to get out of the airport and get on the road already.

It was tough. That wasn't something we could have afforded. I said to Andrew [that] we needed two things to happen to us in this leg of the race to win the $1 million.

[The first was] we needed to run a perfect leg. (Laughs) That was out the window in five minutes. And Ken and Tina and Nick and Starr needed to trip up. They didn't do that, they ran great legs.

So, both of those things needed to happen in order for us to win, and they didn't. So that's what happened, and that's the way it goes.

Reality TV World: How did it feel to make it to the Top 3 and finish in third despite all of the problems that you both seemed to encounter on a regular basis?

Andrew: That day was not the best day for us. As you could see it didn't make us look great at all. But I remember it was from the donut shop to the mansion, we were not happy with our performance and we knew we were third. We took a taxi to the mansion and we, all of the sudden, we realized it was over. We never got eliminated, not many teams can say that, but we never got the boot from the show. That's honorable, that's very honorable and the whole cab ride to the mansion we were so happy. We were saying "Oh, thank god this is over."

Dan: I wasn't happy. I think Andrew was more happy even though I enjoyed every second of it. Like I said, we were happy to get in the Final 3. We completed every Roadblock and Detour in the entire race. No other team can say that, so that was a feather in our cap.

I think Andrew and I ran a great race. I have no regrets about how things went. It's unfortunate that people kind of focus on our moniker as the "bumblers" and the "stumblers" and that we got so lucky. People don't understand, you can't do that and get so [far]. You make your own luck. Isn't the point of the race to not screw up as much as the other teams do? They did! And we didn't screw up as much as they did and we did great things.

People are so focused on our label as a team that they don't realize all of the great things we did! How about me beating everyone in the footrace to the clue box? Or me doing the Bolivia thing in two minutes?

It's unfortunate that people don't think about the whole body of work. They focus on what they want to focus on.

Reality TV World: Ok, well sorry to go down this road right after that, but towards the end of the race [there seemed to be] a few more mistakes made, by you and every [other team] actually, Was that just due to having a hard time concentrating due to fatigue or was it something else?

Dan: Anything specific you're referring to?

Reality TV World: Well just more in general it seemed like everyone had more trouble in the last few legs. Does fatigue set in as the race goes on, and does that play a factor?

Dan: I think the stress level goes up because you know that as teams get knocked out the quality of the competition increases. So you know that if you're making mistakes that all it takes is one to cost you because all the teams that aren't too good are off the show. The teams that haven't been making mistakes are still on it, so you know that one mistake could be the end of you. So yeah we still made mistakes towards the very end, but we didn't make as [many] big mistakes as those other people did.

I think the stress level goes up after each leg and, you know, we made it the whole way.

Andrew: And towards the last, I'd say the last four legs of the race, the race can bring out the worst in people once you're out there so long. Some people star to get wacky. Dan and I began to get a little wacky with each other, you could tell Starr was getting kinda wacky, Tina... You can just see it bring out the worst in people, but that's just [how it is], you spend so many days traveling so much in so little time. Your body isn't gonna react normally to anything that's going on around you in your environment. It's just natural.

Dan: When [Kelly Crabb] and [Christy Cook] got eliminated, to me that was the cutoff point, like "Okay, the lower level teams are gone, and the Top 5 teams... anybody can win."

You could've make a case that [Terence Gerchberg] and [Sarah Leshner] could've won, [Toni and Dallas Imbimbo]... You could make a case for any of the Top 5 teams. It could've gone any way. It was a high quality, a high grade of teams. The best team did win at the end, but I feel that Andrew and I ran a great race, probably could've won there's no question about that. I'm proud of our performance though, we did great.

Reality TV World: In the ninth leg where you were kept alive by the non-elimination leg.  Were either of you guys aware that there was one non-elimination with only two legs of the race remaining, or where you scared that you guys could be going home?

Andrew: No, no, no, no, we knew. We were 99% sure...

Dan: (Interrupting) Well... eh. I was pretty sure, but you never know. I don't assume anything on [The Amazing Race], you never know. Every second counts in this race. You always gotta go as fast as you can the entire time, pedal to the metal.

They started before on [The Amazing Race] where they had the last non-elimination leg with three teams just to throw people off because everyone assumes that the non-elimination's with four teams left. That's what they've done in the past. So I felt pretty good about it, but by no means was I like "Well we can slack off" because we knew it was a non-elimination. If you slack off, then that puts you behind for the next leg. So, I try to never think of things in that fashion.

Andrew: You never know, we didn't know. But, like I said, I didn't say I was 100% sure, I should've said I was pretty damn sure. When we were so far behind it was rough, and the least you could do is at least have some fun and I think we did that day and there were some good memories that came out of it.
 
Reality TV World: Following up on that, were either of you optimistic that you would be able to overcome the additional Speed Bump you would have to [complete] and still make it into the Top 3?

Dan: It was tough because I'm a realistic guy, I don't try to be idealistic. Having the Speed Bump, being hours behind the other teams, and knowing the quality of teams in front of us, it seemed like a real long shot! Like I told you, we needed a miracle to win, and the miracle was not Dallas losing those passports because we got second on that leg. Thank God we didn't get third or else people would be saying for years to come "Oh, well they just made the Final 3 because Dallas made a huge screw up. We earned our second place finish. Ken and Tina were the ones that got bailed out by that.

So it was really tough. We had minimum money, we had the Speed Bump, we were hours behind. But we made our great comeback that day and we passed by Ken and Tina. That was probably our favorite moment of the race, just blowing by them on the way to the Pit Stop.

Reality TV World: How'd you guys end up on the show -- whose idea was it? Was this the first time you have applied for [the show] or had you done it before?

Andrew: I didn't even watch the show really. Dan got me into it. I gave it sort of a "Let's get it over with" attitude. He asked me to try out with him, he said I'd be the best candidate for the job, and I said "Yeah alright, whatever. Let's just do it."

Dan: Yeah, obviously when you send in a video for these types of things you don't have expectations of anything. We had never tried out before. It was just like a fun little project for me and Andrew to do one day, just to say we did it.

We filled out everything to the best of our abilities and then we forgot about it about a week later. The phone call really came out of the blue and, we made it the whole way. We were extremely fortunate to be on such a great program.

Andrew: We did it in the first place, made a three-minute video just so we could show our friends. We weren't even that serious, I think. I mean, maybe Dan was more than me at least because he's into the show. I was very ignorant towards the show until we tried out. Once we tried out I watched some episodes of Season 12, but that was my only other time [with the show] and that's all I did. I didn't interact with the show much and I didn't know that much about it.

Link: http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/exclusive-andrew-lappitt-and-dan-honig-talk-the-amazing-race-8141.php

[Coutzy]

I enjoyed meeting these guys--they have a great gift of being able to laugh at themselves as well. And third place is AWESOME--think of the journey from applying right through all 11 legs--wow!

I believe there was also a problem at their zip. Dan said one of them got stuck part way across the zip and rescue boats had to come and help unstick them...


oh yeah and they got a 40 minute time credit for that too...

Oh how kind of them to give a time credit! LOL!
What would have happened if another team came to the final mat ahead of Dandrew in that time frame? Would they be told to stand to the side?

Now that would be a sucky way to lose.

"Nick and Starr. You're the first team to arrive, but as a result of a time credit Andrew and Dan have actually beaten you so we need you to run past all the teams so we can film you coming second."

[TARAsia Fan]

I don't know if this was posted last season since I wasn't doing the insider clips, so I apologize if you've seen this already. This is a compilation of the Best of Dan & Andrew leading up to the season finale. Of course, the marching is in there which was one of the funniest moments on TV evah!

[georgiapeach]

Dan will be traveling to OMAN for the Oman/Japan WORLD CUP Qualifying Match!! He will be updating the expereience and we can read about it here:

http://173.199.172.172/~ofaom/ofa/guest-column-one-mission-brazil-2014/