Grandfather and grandson, Donald Jerousek and Nicolas Fulks, made it all the way to the finale of The Amazing Race 12. But they came up a little short in the end and finished in third place. Still at almost 70 years old, Donald Jerousek, became the oldest person to make it this far in the race. Quite an accomplishment. I had the chance to talk to them both about their experiences on the show including whether or not older people can win this race or not? Here is what they had to say…
Josh Clinton: Hey guys.
Nicolas Fulks: Hi.
Donald Jerousek: Hey, how are you doing?
JC: I’m doing good. First off, were you both fans of The Amazing Race before you got on the show?
NF: Yeah, my grandfather was a fan, but I was actually the one who had the idea of doing the show because I saw it in passing and thought it would be a really fun time. But he is a big reality TV fan and he watched the show quite a bit.
JC: But it was your idea to go on the show?
NF: Yeah, it was my idea. I saw about 10 minutes of the show and it was the only reality show that I had seen that I thought would be a great thing to go on and would be an amazing experience.
JC: Right. Was there any reason why you wanted to team with your grandfather?
NF: I saw the show and I didn’t think of him right away. I wasn’t old enough at the time. It was the first season of the show and I was only 17. You had to be 21, so I just kinda put it in the back of my mind and when I was 21, I was thinking “who would I want to be on with?” and he passed through my mind, and immediately I thought it would be a great idea.
JC: Okay, cool. Nick, on the show you always called your grandfather “Don” instead of grandfather or some other name. Any reason for that?
NF: No. I guess we have more of a friendly relationship. But I called my dad by his first name growing up and my other set of grandparents, I call them by their first names as well. My little brothers don’t call him Don, though.
JC: I see. Nick, a lot of people may not remember that you are actually a pilot. How did you get into that and was that an advantage for you on the race?
NF: Well since I was a kid I always wanted to fly. I pursued that in college and once I got out of college I got an airline job. As far as the show, traveling was always an interest of mine that kinda related to why I wanted to become a pilot. I thought it might be an advantage and we got a lot of questions before we went on the race like “how are you going to use this to your advantage?”, but I really didn’t know. My grandfather thought it would be an advantage as well. But it really wasn’t. The first person to the airport, the first person to make reservations, got the best flight. That was pretty much all there was to it. Aside from TK’s little blunder in India, really all the groups did a good job getting the best flights leg to leg, and it wasn’t too much of an advantage.
JC: Yeah. Don, it seemed like you had experience with everything from bricklaying to mining to gutting fish even. How did you become such a jack of all trades?
DJ: I will be 70 this year. When you have been around that long, you have experienced so many different things. And because I am this old, in the 40s and 50s you had to do a lot of stuff yourself. You did repairs, you camped out, you had to do all of this stuff because you had no money.
NF: I don’t think it’s simply a case of you being old and that’s why you are a jack of all trades. I think your personality has a lot to do with it, since you have lots of hobbies and you enjoy fixing things and working with your hands. I think it’s more than just because you are 70.
DJ: Right, but what I’m saying is years ago, depending on your family of course, you learned to do a lot of things. There were no computers. I never saw television until I was in high school. So you were doing a lot of outdoor activities and helping your dad build a fence and so on and so forth. So you learned a lot and I don’t see that happening now with young people.
NF: You should have been inside using your Blackberry or working with robots. (Laughs).
DJ: (Laughs). Yeah, that would have helped me.
JC: So did you honestly surprise yourselves with how far you got on the race?
NF: I know my grandfather has. We talked a few days ago. We both had a big party together in Chicago for the Taiwan leg and had a great time. I called him up on Saturday and told him that I didn’t want to watch this final show. I wished that the race would have ended in Taiwan. That would have been a great ending. He told me that we made it the entire race and ran a great race. It still is frustrating, not that we didn’t win, but leg-by-leg we could have moved up to the top of the pack. But looking back at it as a whole, I guess I’m satisfied. I know my grandfather is.
DJ: Oh yeah. Okay, maybe we didn’t finish in the place that we wanted to, but we didn’t finish in last place in any leg and have to go through a “non-elimination leg” and so on. So I thought we did really good.
JC: Yeah. How much of a physical disadvantage was it to have an older team member since clearly TK and Rachel would be able to win any foot race against you guys or Ronald and Christina?
NF: I’m really surprised. The first two legs I thought that maybe we could just squeeze by, because this race would be so physical. We got off of a ferry and it’s who can run 3 miles the fastest down to the bottom of a hill and then race up a hill to get a better position than everyone else. I thought we couldn’t beat all of these other teams. But leg after leg, even that first leg we were in a foot race with Marianna and Julia and we actually made up ground on them. If you compare my grandfather to Rachel or Jen, he wasn’t that much slower without a backpack than they were with a backpack. I don’t think it was that much of a disadvantage, especially in the later legs where it became less and less physical.
DJ: I never felt that my age was going to be a handicap in any respect except for one. If I had to race TK flat out for a mile, he would beat me. But that was the only advantage that I thought the younger people had.
NF: You are only as fast as your slowest team member. So I think that my grandfather without a backpack was not that much slower, if slower at all, than Rachel or Jen or Ron. He was definitely faster without a backpack than Ron was with a backpack. But I don’t think we were that much slower.
DJ: I don’t either actually.
JC: Right. One of the funniest scenes this season was when Don was dancing with Marianna and Julia. Don, what did you think of them?
DJ: They were hot! (Laughs).
NF: And he says that with his wife right next to him.
DJ: But it’s the truth.
NF: Don had a thing for the sisters and it really aggravated me. I have talked about how I loved the group of racers that we were with and it was such a treat to enjoy this experience with such great people. Not that the sisters weren’t great people, but they weren’t fun to be around. They were constantly lying and making up crazy stories. No one liked them. They said at the end of the race that nobody liked them except for Lorena, and there was a reason for that. We all got along well, except for the sisters and Don would be like “yeah, they’re bitches, but they are hot!” He would just talk to them and I would be like “leave them alone Don!” That just aggravated me a bit.
JC: Yeah. Do you guys still have the tattoos you had to get on the “Fast Forward” you completed?
DJ: Absolutely.
NF: Of course. I wouldn’t get rid of that for the world. It was a memory and it’s one of the few memories we have as far as tangibles, because everything was taken away from us. We couldn’t take any pictures. Of course, we have the entire season to look back on but we don’t have anything to hold from the race. You wake up every morning and you look at your arm.
DJ: (Laughs).
NF: It’s fun to share with family and friends who all watched the show and it will be fun to share with people who aren’t familiar with the show, and it will be a great story to tell.
JC: It sure will. Do either of you have a favorite part of the race?
DJ: My favorite part was when we were in Alaska. I really enjoyed the country, the glaciers, and the fish gutting was right up my alley. So I had a good time there.
NF: I had a fun time in Lithuania. Even though I struggled so much with the roadblock, it was fun riding around this pretty old city with pretty old buildings and gorgeous women. Getting the opportunity to meet so many new people. Even though things didn’t work out so well for me, I feel like I was doing everything I could and I just kept pushing until finally I got it. Also, it was a lot of fun working with the kids in Africa.
JC: Right. Did either of you learn something about the other person that you didn’t know before the race?
DJ: I thought that Nick was a little more headstrong than I thought he would be. He was pretty headstrong in pushing me to run faster, do this or that. I didn’t think he would be that strong. I thought he would want me to lead some of the stuff, but it was fine. That wasn’t a problem. But maybe that’s why we got as far as we did, because he pushed me.
NF: I wasn’t surprised by my grandfather physically. He performed as I expected him too. I don’t think of him as a senior citizen. I thought of him as a competitor, so that didn’t surprise me so much. But just his drive to keep going and going and never give up. For example, the roadblock that he struggled with in Holland. I told him afterwards that “if that was me and I had tried 35 times to get over that ditch and I hadn’t even made it halfway most of the time, I would have said I can’t do this!” But he just kept going across until finally he made it. To see him push through the failure until he finally succeeded was a great feeling for me and for both of us. I was really happy for him.
DJ: And I was happy too that I made it. (Laughs).
NF: (Laughs).
JC: Yeah. So what’s next for both of you?
DJ: I’m going to the Survivor show. Well I should say I wish I was going to the Survivor show.
NF: Yeah, I really hope that he gets casted for that, because it’s kinda disappointing that these Sundays of family gatherings and getting together with friends and people I know to watch the show are over. Nothing would be better than watching my grandfather on Survivor, so I really hope that he gets called up for that,
DJ: (Laughs).
NF: But I just came back to my job in Puerto Rico. I’ve been flying for Regional Airlines the last six months and I’m planning on coming back to Chicago in the next year or so. No big plans.
JC: Alright, well that sounds good. Thanks for your time and good luck with everything.
NF: Thanks.
DJ: Thanks a lot.
– The Amazing Race airs on CBS in the U.S. on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
– The Amazing Race airs on the CTV network in Canada on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
