Stuck in Amsterdam with Brad and Victoria of The Amazing Race 14
by Reg Seeton
Throughout all seasons of The Amazing Race the road to a million dollar victory has often depended on anything from challenges and roadblocks to getting a slow cab and being delayed by various flights to other destinations. This week's episode of The Amazing Race saw the competition come down to timing as the teams raced from Austria to German to Romania, with the final leg and pitstop located in the famous vampire locale of Transylvania. When teams departed from Austria, married Columbus, Ohio couple Brad and Victoria Hunt moved away from the pack to try to find a better flight to Romania. But when Brad and Victoria touched down in Amsterdam for a connecting plane to their final destination, fog rolled into the airport that left all flights from the airport grounded until the morning.
Although Brad and Victoria made up close to 14 hours at one point in the race, time simply got away from them after they completed the gymnastics challenge and a spooky coffin test before hitting the final mat with host Phil Keoghan and Brad covered head-to-toe in fake blood. The morning after Brad and Victoria's elimination from The Amazing Race, we tracked down the married couple to find out what went wrong, how one minute can make a world of difference, and how The Amazing race affected their relationship.
THE DEADBOLT: When you were in Amsterdam, how much did you scramble after you found out you were going to be stuck there?
BRAD HUNT: Actually, we didn’t scramble at all. The desk we were at had access to all of the flights from the airport and she said that all of the flights that night were cancelled because of fog. There was nothing.
VICTORIA HUNT: There were no options. There were literally no options.
THE DEADBOLT: Did you guys know at that point that you might be out?
BRAD: [laughs] Well, we knew it wasn’t good. But there was fog so there was no reason to think that other people wouldn’t have had fog that was just as bad or worse than ours. It’s not where we wanted to be. But by no means did we give up or get discouraged at that point.
THE DEADBOLT: How far were you guys really behind the others? It looked like you were fairly close later on.
BRAD: At some point we were nearly as much as 18 hours behind and I think we caught up to within four to six hours. The next day we raced like fiends. It was insane.
VICTORIA: It was a wild day, yeah. We did really well with all of the challenges and we had fun doing it and we never gave up hope. It was something we weren’t willing to even consider even though there’s probably a little piece of our brains that kind of acknowledged, "You know what? Our game is probably over." But until we were at that pitstop, it’s not over till it’s over. So we raced as though we still in it. We had every hope that somebody else had screwed up, got another bad flight, or maybe it was non-elimination leg. And the moment we saw Phil at that pitstop, and even as we were standing there, there was still one more second of hope - "He might say it. He might say it."
BRAD: Actually, when we showed up, he said, "Brad and Victoria, you’re the last team to arrive." And I was like, "Yeah, and, and ...?" And nothing, "You’re eliminated!"
THE DEADBOLT: Brad, at the end of the vampire challenge you were covered in fake blood? Were you rolling around? What was going on?
BRAD: Well, no, there were those frames that you had to smash on the stake. I was actually kind of surprised last night when I saw the other people smashing them. It was pretty wimpy frame smashing. I mean I had so much adrenaline going, so much stress going at that time, that I took those frames and I was smashing them and blood was everywhere. It was all part of my plan to end the show covered in blood so that if anyone thought of asking me stupid questions about a plane ride, they’d have second thoughts about that [laughs].
THE DEADBOLT: Victoria, you looked pretty comfortable in the gym during the gymnastics challenge. Did you have any experience in that before the show?
VICTORIA: Well, thank you for recognizing that. I was kind of bummed that they didn’t show me doing more of the gymnastics because that was, I think, one of the moments in which we may have actually made up some good time, from what we could tell, watching last night. The other girls were struggling with some of the exercises. I got in there, they show me the routine, and I whipped it. I didn’t even have to really repeat the routine. Maybe one time I had to do one over but it just came to me, like riding a bike. I’ve done a little bit of gymnastics when I was a little girl and I guess you just kind of pull it from your past. You know, it’s like riding a bike.
THE DEADBOLT: What do you think the secret is to getting ahead of the other teams?
BRAD: It comes down to different things. Sometimes you need to be very competent at doing a challenge. Chris ran like a mad man and if he hadn’t made a wrong turn he would’ve picked up a ton of time running down the mountain at Ruhpolding [Germany]. Other times it had to do with being a little bit clever. Neither one of us after Steve and Linda were eliminated - I think we were the least fast team on there so we couldn’t count om speed. You know, a foot race? We didn’t want to get into that. We were fairly competent in challenges. But I think what we were best at is that we are fairly good at talking to people, getting information, and finding our way on our own. The rest of the teams wanted to stick together and work as a group and share information. I never really understood people on the show, and they’re always talking about doing that. I don’t understand why you would do that. But they felt comfortable operating as a herd and we chose a different way.
THE DEADBOLT: Do you think that’s part of the reason you got eliminated?
BRAD: Well, absolutely. Last night I was looking at some postings and some people were like, "That was stupid. They were only going to make up 15-minutes by taking that flight. And to take the risk of missing a connection to only make up fifteen minutes, that was stupid." What they don’t understand is that it wasn’t only the 15-minutes, it was the fact that we wanted to get away from the rest of the group, because every single time we would find out a little piece of information they would see us talking to some people and know that we knew something and start following us or come up and ask us what we knew. And we either had to share it or be accused of conniving or lie or something. So that was a good part of the effort to get on the plane, to get away from the group.
But we also knew that you try to get on the flight that arrives earlier if you can, and we didn’t know until we got to the departure gate that no other teams were going to be on that flight. Now we’d feel pretty stupid if we didn’t choose that flight and found out that three teams got there 15-minutes earlier than us and the consequence got on the earlier train and the consequence arrived two hours earlier. So it’s easy to watch the show on TV and second-guess everything because you have the benefit of hindsight. At the time you have a strategy and some things you want to do and you have to go with your intuition and the information you have.
THE DEADBOLT: So is it that quick for things to turn around? You get a bad cab and you're done?
VICTORIA: Well, look at what happened to Tammy and Victor. We didn’t even realize until we watched the show last night how much they screwed up as well, and they were the team to beat. That’s what we were thinking all along. And then we come to find out they not only screwed up a little, but they were in 8th place. The game can change on a dime. The game can change on a minute. We missed the connecting flight in Amsterdam, literally, by one minute and that one minute cost us the entire rest of the race. So it’s phenomenal how quickly it can change.
BRAD: And I don’t think I’ll be spoiling to say that you’re going to see the rest of the season the lead will flip-flop many times.
THE DEADBOLT: Did you get to spend any time in Transylvania after the show?
BRAD: We were there for a little while waiting on the elimination station. But unfortunately when you’re eliminated you’re in lockdown [laughs].
VICTORIA: Yeah, they put you in lockdown. They don’t want anyone to see you out in the public and so that was unfortunate.
BRAD: We got to spend a few minutes at Brasov and go out to eat a couple of times and see the town a little bit. But we didn’t get to poke around the way we would have liked to.
THE DEADBOLT: What did the experience do for your relationship?
VICTORIA: Well, we knew going into the race that there were obviously going to be moments that were going to test us as a couple, and we talked about it. You know, "How are we going to resolve this kind of issue and that kind of issue?’ We know what our strengths and weaknesses are in terms of our personalities. So pretty much the race played out the way that we predicted it would and we went in as a strong couple, we played as a strong couple, and we came home as a strong couple. But that doesn’t mean to say that since we came home that we haven’t had any issues. You know, there are a lot of emotions that kind of hover around and you have to deal with it. They come up.
This whole past week, knowing that this third episode was going to be on, our final episode, and we’re going to [be eliminated], all of our family and friends are going to be disappointed and we having to relive that moment again. We tested ourselves again and we found ourselves a little snippy and whatever. When push comes to shove, Brad and I really know how to look at ourselves as a couple and talk through the issues and finally come to a resolution on how can we change to make this better? We’re really not willing to walk away, ever.
BRAD: [laughs] We’re kind of hoping that the next step for us is going to be a relationship show and we’ll knock Dr. Phil out of the [way].
-- Reg Seeton
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