The Amazing Race > The Racers
TAR 28: Burnie Burns & Ashley Jenkins -- YouTube Stars/Dating
Platrium:
Exclusive: 'The Amazing Race' eliminees Burnie Burns and Ashley Jenkins talk (Part 1)
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 05/11/2016
The Amazing Race eliminated Burnie Burns and Ashley Jenkins, determining Season 28's Final 3 teams during Friday night's broadcast of the CBS reality competition.
Burnie and Ashley, who recently became engaged although they were dubbed a "Dating Couple" on the show, were the eighth team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's eleventh Pit Stop at Shenzhen Library Terrace in Shenzhen, China, in last place.
Burnie and Ashley were a tough team to beat all season long, as they finished in second place numerous times. The couple therefore became a target in China because no one wanted to go up against them in the final leg.
During an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Tuesday, Burnie and Ashley talked about their The Amazing Race experience. Below is the first half. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion.
Reality TV World: The show made it look like you were running around looking for The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan while Sheri LaBrant and Cole LaBrant were doing the same. How long after them did you finally arrive at the Pit Stop? What was the time gap between you and them?
Burnie Burns: We think it was about five minutes. At least one of the co-creators of the show, she would have the best perspective, and she said it was about five minutes. But we looked for the Pit Stop much longer than Sheri and Cole did, from what we understand.
Ashley Jenkins: Yeah, from what we understand, we were looking for it for 30-40 minutes, and their taxi pulled up to it, they got out and heard the music.
Burnie Burns: Right. Because the Pit Stop was not at the painting. It was probably about two blocks away from there. I think it was meant to be. It was a really well-designed leg, because it was a whole day of asking for directions, you know?
We had to ask for directions to the park and we had to ask for directions to the painting, and then the Pit Stop was designed where you had to hunt for that thing. But I do think the moment we got eliminated was when we got out of the cab.
That was the last decision that we made, and we couldn't recover from that. Potentially, you know, you go through, "What ifs?" Potentially, that cab could've done what Sheri and Cole's cab did, which was like, just drop us off right at the library.
Ashley Jenkins: Yeah. But we were stuck in traffic and we were so worried. The driver told us that it was only a couple of blocks away, and he pointed us in the direction, and we took off.
Burnie Burns: Yeah, we were not in a "hey, let's sit still," kind of mindset.
Reality TV World: Burnie, you said on your way up the stairs to the Pit Stop there was a chance you were in first place. So I'm guessing you didn't mean that and you were just trying to be optimistic or something?
Burnie Burns: That was 100% a joke.
Reality TV World: Oh okay. (Laughs)
Burnie Burns: We were looking for the Pit Stop for so long. There's actually a behind-the-scenes video on the YouTube channel where they talk to us right after we got off the mat.
We looked for the Pit Stop for so long, I was worried Phil was going to come find us, when you have that moment of not even making it to the mat and Phil has to come find you to tell you that you're eliminated. Because we could not find this thing! It was 40 minutes of running around in the rain just trying to find the location.
Ashley Jenkins: And we asked dozens and dozens of people all within that Civic Center area, and no one could tell us where the library was.
Burnie Burns: Yeah, that was 100% a joke of me saying that we were in first.
Ashley Jenkins: We knew that was SO long gone. (Laughs)
Burnie Burns: Oh yeah!
Reality TV World: I've heard most of the teams were good friends with each other this season. So if that applies to you guys as well, watching Friday night's episode back, was it a little disheartening to see how excited Tyler Oakley and Korey Kuhl, as well as Dana Borriello and Matt Steffanina, were when they saw Sheri and Cole approaching the Pit Stop mat in third place ahead of you two?
Ashley Jenkins: We have to take it as a little bit of a compliment that they were so happy they didn't have to race against us because they were threatened by us.
Burnie Burns: Yeah, you want teams in the finals that you think you can beat. And listen, I mean, it's really weird for us, but I am happy for Sheri and Cole.
Ashley Jenkins: We're all happy for Sheri and Cole.
Burnie Burns: That's probably one of my favorite moments in the Race, which is so weird because it's also such a low point for me personally in the Race. But yeah, there's no hard feelings, especially from a competition standpoint.
I'm the type of competitor where it's like, when you're on the field, it's a competition, but then when you step off, you can immediately shake hands with everybody. As we say in video games, you say, "Good game. Good game, everybody."
Reality TV World: I was going to ask you, Burnie, if you were frustrated how Tyler had lied to you a couple of times. But it sounds like you understand he and Korey just needed to do that to get ahead?
Burnie Burns: Yeah. The only thing I would say that I probably don't like about that is the fact I used the word "lying," because that has such a negative connotation to it. I mean, that's like misdirection, you know, that's going to take place during the Race.
And actually, you know, the fact that you can see through it makes it better. You realize the game is on; The game is afoot. So, yeah, that kind of stuff didn't bother me that much. I like to play it back and fire back, like when I said, "Are you guys still looking for your clue?" That was at the airport.
Ashley Jenkins: Even throughout that leg, Burnie was having a great time playing against Tyler and Korey and their cheeky racing.
Burnie Burns: Yeah. I was actually kind of surprised seeing it back, like, it did seem a little bit more like we were at odds. Neither of us remembered since that actual leg took place.
The one thing I can say for sure -- I can't speak for the other teams -- but this was 11 legs in. We were absolutely -- I was absolutely fatigued by this point in time. The way it builds up over time, it's just like, I don't think there's any way to possibly prepare for that.
Ashley Jenkins: There's absolutely no way.
Burnie Burns: I can't wait to see what the teams are going to be like running in the finale. I mean, there's going to be that adrenaline racing for a million dollars, but at the same time, it just weighs on you.
Reality TV World: You just mentioned how you're really happy for Sheri and Cole that they made the Final 3. So it sounds like you think they are deserving although they luckily survived two non-elimination legs? I didn't know if that would be a tough pill for you guys to swallow considering you had so many second-place finishes and they had so many last-place ones. (Laughs)
Burnie Burns: There's actually a weird record with that. We have a weird record, and they have a weird record.
Ashley Jenkins: Apparently, we are the highest ranked team to go through the Race without a single win.
Burnie Burns: Based on finish time -- average finish rank.
Ashley Jenkins: Yeah, and [Sheri and Cole] are the -- I think they have the lowest finish average of any team to make the Final 3. So, they are absolutely a dark horse. They did have the two non-eliminations, and it's always scary when you see a non-elimination go by, because you know there's one fewer ahead just in case you have a bad day. But on this leg, I don't think anyone can argue that they didn't earn it.
Burnie Burns: Right.
Ashley Jenkins: They raced that entire leg on their own two feet with no real help from anybody, and they came out ontop!
Burnie Burns: Non-elimination legs are part of the Race, and they did get two of them -- which gave them three lives in the Race -- but at the same time, we took part in using a U-Turn, and so did Tyler and Korey. [Kurt Gibson and Brodie Smith] had the Express Pass.
Those are all parts of the Race. They are events that take place and, as you get to them first, you can take advantage of them. Dana and Matt are the only people in the finals, really the only people in the Top 5, that never used anything at all to their advantage. They just had a straight race through.
Reality TV World: How much time did you spend at the unicycle Detour task, and do you regret not trying to stick it out for a little longer? Or do you think you made the right choice in switching to the art gallery task?
Burnie Burns: Man, I'll let Ashley answer this, but I don't really regret sticking it out longer. I regret trying it in the first place, because that was my idea. We actually selected the paintings first, and then on the train ride, I realized what the unicycles were -- because, this is going to be a horrible thing to say -- but when we were preparing for the Race, we did lots of things.
I had in my Amazon shopping cart one of those unicycles. I don't know what made me put it in there. It was, like, a $600 unicycle. So, for like two months, I didn't buy it. When I got back from the Race, it was still in my shopping cart. To think about that is just crazy to me.
It's like, I don't know why that made me think we should give it a shot, but I just felt like, "I know what this thing it. It's like a Segway, and we can do this. It's not like a sit-down unicycle." And I just wish that I hadn't convinced Ashley to do that.
Ashley Jenkins: Well, if I thought that was the one event that put us out of the Race, I would regret it more. But as we were discussing the different tasks, we knew that doing the paintings would involve shutting ourselves into an art gallery for a while. And we thought, "We've taken a lot of safe choices."
We did the safe choice in Chamonix. We did the safe, reliable choice, and that Detour almost put us out of the Race. We thought, "We've come all the way to China. This is a bucket-list country for us. We've always wanted to come. We didn't come to lock ourselves in an art gallery. Let's try something fun."
Burnie Burns: Yeah! Give it a shot and do something fun and exciting.
Ashley Jenkins: And we felt like we had the flexibility to do that because we did have the lead over Sheri and Cole.
Burnie Burns: Also, we made a switch in Dubai that worked out well for us, using the same theory. And those Detours were probably 25 kilometers apart. Here, the Detours were a block away from each other. So, it was like, they were in the same art district, so we felt like we could easily try it and then move to the next one. But the wardrobe change, I think, changed that into a risk a little bit.
Ashley Jenkins: It did a little bit.
Burnie Burns: It made the task more of a risk.
Ashley Jenkins: But we did still try it for a little while. We switched and we did complete our other Detour, still, in third place.
Burnie Burns: Yes.
Ashley Jenkins: So, I think while that was a contributing factor, I don't think that single decision is what put us out of this Race.
Burnie Burns: There were a lot of things that led to us being eliminated. I think choosing the unicycle is probably the thing we had the most control over. So, in that sense, yeah, I would think so.
Check back with Reality TV World soon for the concluding portion of Burnie and Ashley's exclusive The Amazing Race interview.
Platrium:
Exclusive: 'The Amazing Race' team Burnie Burns and Ashley Jenkins talk (Part 2)
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 05/13/2016
The Amazing Race eliminated "Dating Couple" Burnie Burns and Ashley Jenkins, determining Season 28's Final 3 teams during the penultimate broadcast of the CBS reality competition.
Burnie and Ashley became the eighth team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's eleventh Pit Stop at Shenzhen Library Terrace in Shenzhen, China, in last place.
Burnie and Ashley were a tough team to beat all season long, as they finished in second place numerous times. The couple therefore became a target in China because no one wanted to go up against them in the final leg.
During an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Tuesday, Burnie and Ashley talked about their The Amazing Race experience. Below is the concluding portion. Click here to read the first half.
Reality TV World: Do you think it's a tougher blow to get eliminated before the final leg than it would be to race in the final leg and lose the million? What do you imagine is worse?
Burnie Burns: Man, that's a great question! That's a great question. We don't know because we only did our way.
Ashley Jenkins: We'd be more than happy to try the other way!
Burnie Burns: (Laughs) Yeah, we'd be happy to do a do-over! I can say that Ashley and I -- I'm pretty sure it was in Armenia -- we were like, "Okay, if we get eliminated tomorrow, I would still be really happy with this experience." And then when we got to China, we realized, "We've gone the whole way. We will be at every step of the way until the finish line."
So we thought we were very grateful to be able to travel to every country [this season], so that was the good part to us. So, I mean, obviously we want to be racing for the million dollars though. That's definitely preferable to being eliminated.
Ashley Jenkins: Yeah, we're gamers. We don't like losing at any level.
Burnie Burns: Yeah.
Reality TV World: How long do you think it took you to complete the art gallery Detour task?
Burnie Burns: The hardest part about it was -- and it shouldn't have been the hardest part of it -- we kind of nailed the hanging of the paintings pretty well, even though our art gallery, well, I was watching it back and there's a point when we go into [Tyler Oakley and Korey Kuhl]'s art gallery.
Ashley Jenkins: They had a huge art gallery!
Burnie Burns: Our art gallery was so small that we were in, we couldn't flip over paintings in it. We had to take paintings outside, flip them over and bring them back in. There was no way anyone else needed to do this.
Ashley Jenkins: (Laughs)
Burnie Burns: There's a behind-the-scenes video on The Amazing Race YouTube channel called "walking in circles." It took us forever to get the paintings and find the art gallery. We asked probably three people for directions and nobody could read the address. They all just, like, pointed in the general direction. That was probably the single most frustrating part of that.
Ashley Jenkins: I think we spent at least 15 or 20 minutes carrying around a whole bunch of heavy paintings and everyone pointing us in a different direction. It was extraordinarily frustrating.
Burnie Burns: Yeah, if I look at this leg like a game level, the way it was designed, it was designed so well. Because it was basically a whole day of trying to find things and get directions while in a place where the language barrier was probably the hardest.
In the amusement park, we had to run around and find things, and the only people we could ask were tourists in the amusement park, and then we had to find the art gallery, and then we had a Pit Stop that was in a two-block radius and we had to find that. So it was really well-designed.
Ashley Jenkins: After this leg, I started learning Mandarin.
Burnie Burns: (Laughs)
Reality TV World: I don't blame you. (Laughs)
Ashley Jenkins: I can ask, "Where is the library?" in Mandarin any day!
Burnie Burns: She also bought that unicycle.
Ashley Jenkins: I did. You have to take the moments you fell down as an opportunity to save yourself, and so, I'm going to conquer a unicycle and I'm going to conquer Mandarin.
Burnie Burns: There you go!
Ashley Jenkins: And then, I will be that much stronger.
Reality TV World: You two made the biggest move this season by U-Turning Tyler and Korey to ensure Brodie Smith and Kurt Gibson would be the only team completing both sides of the Detour so they'd go home. Korey felt bad about U-Turning the guys at first and Tyler had to talk him out of it. Did you experience any guilt after that? Did Brodie and Kurt ever say anything to you?
Ashley Jenkins: We traveled a lot in the early part of the Race with Brodie and Kurt, and we really like those guys. We think the world of them. They are both incredible competitors and they're both such nice guys as well. We also lost three footraces to the mat to those two players.
Burnie Burns: We lost in Mexico City, we lost in Chamonix, and we lost in Dubai. Three straight footraces we lost to those guys.
Ashley Jenkins: So we knew that if we were to have any sort of chance at taking the million dollars, they would make it that much harder for us. That was one consideration, but we also, when we got to that U-Turn board, all you can do is play with the pieces you're provided. And we had a couple of options there. Because [Brodie and Kurt] were already U-Turned, we could either leave it and let them U-Turn someone else...
Burnie Burns: Probably [Sheri LaBrant and Cole LaBrant].
Ashley Jenkins: And stay in the Race, or we could have U-Turned someone else on their behalf -- and that probably would have been Sheri and Cole -- or we could make sure that they went out. From a strategic standpoint, only one of those made any sense.
Burnie Burns: Yeah. I mean, you get to that board and the scenario is that you can't change what you are presented with. We just looked at what was there and we had to make the best choice for our team at that point in time. We were the strategy team. I think that was our strength. And, you know, we never asked the fast team not to run.
I think I would've felt more guilty if we had gotten all of these second places, we get to the U-Turn board and are like, "Nope, we're just going to move on! We're not going to use the U-Turn." I would ask as a viewer, like, "Does this team want to win?! Why are they doing this?"
You know what I mean? It's like, that was our opportunity as a team that's racing people who are probably 15 years younger than me and professional athletes. You've got to take the opportunities you can to win. And in terms of Brodie and Kurt, they haven't complained about it one time.
I mean, I think there's been a lot of people complaining on their behalf, but they understand it. They are professional athletes and professional competitors. Yeah, we've seen them since the Race and it's always been -- everything has been fine.
Reality TV World: What's the status of your relationship now? How are things going?
Burnie Burns: Well, we broke up right after the Race.
Ashley Jenkins: (Laughs)
Reality TV World: (Laughs) I was hoping there was an announcement or something!
Burnie Burns: Yeah, we're engaged now! We got engaged about a month after we got back from the Race.
Ashley Jenkins: Burnie didn't tell me this, but apparently when we were in Bali, he spent some of our leg money to buy a ring.
Burnie Burns: I did. I bought a little string ring, but then when we got back to the U.S., it didn't feel like that was appropriate. So, I replaced it with a real ring. And yeah, we got engaged shortly after that.
Reality TV World: Well congratulations! And lastly, at the time you guys left the Race, which team were you rooting for to win?
Burnie Burns: On the mat, I don't think we were rooting for anybody in particular, but they asked, "Who do you think is going to win it?" And we said, "Tyler and Korey." Just looking at averages and the strength of the teams...
Ashley Jenkins: They've been so dominant the last half of the Race.
Burnie Burns: But anybody can win it! That's what we were thinking, you know? [Dana Borriello and Matt Steffanina] won the first leg, they didn't use any of the power pieces. And Sheri and Cole...
Ashley Jenkins: You said, "They refuse to die."
Burnie Burns: Yes! (Laughs) They refuse to die.
Ashley Jenkins: They never give up. There were so many tasks that we gave up on and they stuck through.
Burnie Burns: Oh yeah. They just, man, did [great]. So we're not rooting for anyone in particular. We really liked all the teams, but I think Tyler and Korey -- I'll say what I said on the mat when we were eliminated -- I think they're the strongest team and going into the finals, they are going to carry that through.
To read the first half of Burnie and Ashley's exclusive The Amazing Race interview with Reality TV World, click here.
Platrium:
For being a very strategic team, I think they could've won the race had they not stumbled in Shenzhen, especially since Tyler & Korey were behind and Matt & Dana let their cab go. :(
Marionete:
--- Quote from: Platrium on May 14, 2016, 06:19:32 AM ---For being a very strategic team, I think they could've won the race had they not stumbled in Shenzhen, especially since Tyler & Korey were behind and Matt & Dana let their cab go. :(
--- End quote ---
There's no way to predict that.
If Tyler & Korey had somehow been out in 4th, you would've said that the finale was theirs to win with such strong past performances had they made it to the F3. But they flopped at most tasks.
Platrium:
--- Quote from: Marionete on May 14, 2016, 09:12:01 AM ---
--- Quote from: Platrium on May 14, 2016, 06:19:32 AM ---For being a very strategic team, I think they could've won the race had they not stumbled in Shenzhen, especially since Tyler & Korey were behind and Matt & Dana let their cab go. :(
--- End quote ---
There's no way to predict that.
If Tyler & Korey had somehow been out in 4th, you would've said that the finale was theirs to win with such strong past performances had they made it to the F3. But they flopped at most tasks.
--- End quote ---
They flop mostly at detours due to their risky decisions. Everything else seems smooth for them.
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