Six teams still remain on the hunt to win The Amazing Race 27, but a brand-new quest is about to begin for eleven new pairs of racers.
Season 28 of the Emmy-winning reality competition series will begin filming in just a few short days, featuring a cast of social media stars. CBS will announce the full cast later today (Nov. 11), but first, Parade can exclusively reveal two of the people heading into the race: Rooster Teeth hosts and couple Burnie Burns and Ashley Jenkins, key players in the video gaming community, and devoted fans of Amazing Race.
In a quick chat with Parade, Burnie and Ashley opened up about why they’re embarking on the race, why they think they’ll do well, and what they’re dreading in the weeks ahead. (Spoiler alert: It involves pizza.)
Tell us what drew you to The Amazing Race in the first place.
Burnie Burns: The Amazing Race has always been the gold standard of reality television to me. It’s smart, it’s funny and it’s entertaining as hell. Plus Ashley and I are life-long gamers. I have been playing video games since the Atari 2600 days. And Ashley started her career as a professional gamer. To us, The Amazing Race takes the whole world and turns it into a giant game. What could be better?
Ashley Jenkins: I love traveling and I can’t think of anyone better than Burnie to see the world with. There’s nothing like The Amazing Race. We couldn’t pay for a vacation like this with all the money in the world. Pitting ourselves against the other teams to see who can travel best brings out my competitive spirit.
What are your expectations right now, in this short time before you head into the race?
Burnie: Ashley and I have done a ton of prep for the show. We have been studying the game and training for what we hope to encounter. However, there’s no way to tell what we are going to come up against. We’ve seen hundreds of episodes and there are always new challenges that we didn’t anticipate. So our expectation is that our preparation will set us on the right course, but there are surely some surprises to come.
Ashley: My chief expectation is to learn quickly how much harder the competition is than it looks on TV. It’s easy to think we’ll excel, but it will take more than wanting it to get us to the top. At this point, lots of teams show up with an understanding of the game. Every season, being a stand out competitor gets harder and harder.
How have you been preparing for the adventure?
Ashley: I’m a gamer so I’m used to a slightly less active lifestyle but that’s not going to get me through the challenges ahead, so I’ve been hitting the gym and running to build muscle mass and endurance. I can almost do a push up now! Big progress.
Burnie: Endurance training has been a constant activity in our lives since we learned we were going to be on the show. We have been whittling our packs’ weight down slowly but surely. We don’t think we will have the lightest pack in the history of the show (Abba from Season 21 says his was under 10 lbs), but we will get close. And I don’t think we are sacrificing much for losing that weight. We might wear the same pair of underwear a few dozen times, but that’s just how it goes.
As many former contestants on the show say, “We aren’t here to make friends.” Our packing choices pretty much guarantee that will be true.
How do you feel the Rooster Teeth community will fuel you during the race?
Burnie: It’s hard to say. We don’t think we will have any access to the Internet at any point and that’s where our audience lives. We definitely feel as though we are representing literally millions of people in the Rooster Teeth community. It will be hard to give up on anything with that many people cheering us on.
Ashley: Every time the going gets hard we’ll be able to think of the millions of Rooster Teeth fans who will be supporting us, and with that kind of pressure there’s no way we can let ourselves do less than our best. We hope they’re as excited as we are that we’re doing the race.
Tell us about your relationship. How you think you’ll work together as a team in the situations ahead?
Burnie: Ash and I complement each other very well. I tend to be a little more bullish and she’s as level-headed as they come. We will be fine as long as I don’t lose my patience and as long as she doesn’t get hungry. When she gets hungry, all bets are off. I learned a long time ago to keep her well fed. I think half my pack weight is snacks for her. It’s like I’m carrying a soccer mom’s purse on my back.
Ashley: I think we’re a great team. We know how to buckle down and get things done in a crisis and leave the panic for later. I’m stubborn, sometimes to the point of not knowing when to give in, and Burnie keeps me balanced. And he keeps me fed, which is the big thing, really.
Any major fears about what’s ahead?
Burnie: I’m personally worried about dumb mistakes like missing a sign or misreading a clue. Those errors seem easy to make when you are sleep deprived and road weary. We will have to be careful not to get tunnel vision. I’m also afraid of the show’s producers reading interviews to see what we are most afraid of and then using that against us during the race. So keeping that in mind, my biggest fears are massages and pizza.
Ashley: My outlook on fear is that it’s something you have to deal with. You can’t let it stop you. That’s why I haven’t let my distaste for falling stop me from jumping out of perfectly good planes, and we’re both going to have to go full throttle in this race and charge through every challenge that presents itself. As long as I don’t wet myself, I think I’ll be ok.
Plant the flag now, and tell us why you’re going to win this thing.
Ashley: Burnie and I are older than most people in our profession, so we’re used to having extra experience on our side, and we’re past trusting our youthful energy to see us through anything. We favor preparation more than luck, and I think that will be a key component to doing well in this race.
Burnie: I think I might be one of the oldest contestants in this season, unless someone brings a parent. I lived a significant portion of my life before the Internet and smart phones. Most people under thirty have not. The first few legs of the race might have the rest of the teams going through some serious data withdrawal symptoms. We might even lose a team or two that will drop out just to check the likes on their last Instagram photo.
Plus, I have a great teammate. She’s rock solid and does not fluster easily. And male/female teams win 54% of the time. How can we lose? Don’t answer that!
Stay tuned for more updates about The Amazing Race 28.
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