The winners of The Amazing Race 12 are TK Erwin and Rachel Rosales. They are yet another young dating couple to win the race. But how much did youth help them in this race and what exactly will they do with the money? I had the chance to talk to them both about that and much more. Here is what they had to say…
Josh Clinton: Hey guys.
TK Erwin: Hello.
JC: How’s it going?
TE: Good. Yourself?
JC: I’m doing good. So is it true that both of your moms knew each other even before you guys became a couple?
TE: Yes.
Rachel Rosales: Yes.
JC: Was that how you met then?
TE: Well kinda. We both know of each other growing up through our parents. I always knew of Rachel because my mom was good friends with her mom and Rachel always knew of me because her mom was good friends with my mom. But through grade school and high school and stuff, Rachel was a year older than me and hung out with a different crowd. We didn’t really know each other beyond that. But a year and a half ago, she went to the movies with her mom and I tagged along with my mom, and we kinda figured out how much we did have in common and have been side-by-side since.
JC: Very cool. Did your moms watch the show together?
RR: Yeah, a few times they definitely did. Then the finale they watched it apart, but after they saw that we had won they got together and had a drink together.
JC: Right. So were you both fans of The Amazing Race before you got on the show?
RR: I was a little bit more of a fan than TK. He watched some of the seasons, but not as much as I did.
TE: As far as reality television is concerned, I appreciated it for what it was but I wasn’t really a big television watcher per se at the time. But before the race we watched a lot of the past episodes and I think I can safely say that I’m definitely a fan of it for sure.
JC: Who decided you should be a team on the race then?
RR: That was probably more me, because I had watched it so many times and I knew a lot about it. I had only really known TK for four months, but I knew enough about him already to know that our dynamics would work well on the race. So I thought it would be a good idea to go for the adventure and try out.
JC: Alright, cool. On the show, you guys were calm and fun-loving. You almost came across as like “California hippies”. Is that an accurate statement?
TE: (Laughs). Um…
RR: Yeah, it’s not far off at all.
TE: We do live by the beach, we don’t fight with each other, and we do like to have a good time. I think we both welcome any new adventure as well, so as far as that is concerned…
RR: We fit a handful of those stereotypes.
JC: Right, cool. Have you gotten the chance to meet the other Amazing Race “hippie” team, BJ and Tyler, who won The Amazing Race 9?
TE: No.
RR: No, we haven’t.
TE: Not yet.
JC: Well hopefully you will get the chance to meet them one day.
TE: Hopefully.
RR: Yeah.
JC: Why do you think Ron and Christina managed to seemingly get the jump on everyone, despite the fact that they argued with each other all the time?
TE: Well beyond the fact that they argued, they are both intelligent and very fit. Ron is in great shape. He could keep up with all the young people. And Christina graduated from Princeton and is very smart. I think Christina was racing a hard race. She was constantly racing in her mind and constantly strategizing. I think they put together a good race, and I think the fact that we had a Japan leg and a Taiwan leg gave them a little bit of an advantage as well because of the language barrier.
JC: Right. How much of an advantage was it for you that Jen and Nate got eliminated before the finale, since they were the biggest physical threat for you?
RR: Well the thing about the race is that you can never judge someone on the physical part of it, because you never know what it’s going to be. I think even in that last leg there was nothing really physical, which I think we enjoyed more because if we would have won on some crazy physical challenge people might have said “well of course, they’re young compared to these other teams!” So we were glad that it wasn’t…
TE: As far as the physical competition is concerned had Nate and Jen made the final three they definitely would have wanted us to get eliminated. And because we made the final three we were happy that they were gone because physically our teams were so similar, and we would much rather race against against a team where our strengths and weaknesses are different from them than race against someone that is very similar in the physical realm. So yeah, we were happy to see Nate and Jen go because they were definitely a huge threat.
JC: Yeah. Back a few legs ago, when you finished in last and had to do perform the speedbump, did you ever think that you would have a chance at winning the entire race at all?
RR: Yeah, we really had fire in us at that point, just because we knew we had to hustle nonstop on that leg to be able to make it through. So we just really had confidence that if we were able to accomplish that, we were set for the rest of the race.
TE: I think when we landed in Taiwan and found out that we had caught up with the other teams, it put us emotionally way up because we weren’t expecting to catch up with them so quickly. And because we had, we were kinda on cloud nine and really confident and feeling good about our chances. But I think the fact that we did catch up wasn’t great for the moral for those other teams, who thought we were out of it.
JC: Right. Rachel, when you figured out the final puzzle, how much of a lead did you have on Christina?
RR: I don’t know, because we left and I don’t know how much longer after that she left. But when we showed she had already been there for 15 minutes and I worked for about a hour.
JC: Oh, okay. Clearly you had an athletic advantage over the older people in the other two teams, did you go into the finale knowing that you had a physical advantage?
TE: Yeah, I definitely felt that Rachel and I did have a physical advantage over the other two teams, but we weren’t naive. We knew that Nick and Don and Ron and Chris made it to that point in the race.
RR: They had done all of the same things that we had done and we were all in the same place.
TE: Both teams are very capable and there were legs of the race that both of those teams beat us. So we definitely weren’t taking anything for granted, but we wouldn’t have been bummed out if we had got to the airport and they told us we had to run 10 miles, you know?
JC: Yeah, exactly. So far all the winning team members of The Amazing Race have been in that 21-40 year old age bracket. Do you think it’s impossible for older teams to win this race?
TE: Absolutely not, and I think this race showed that too. It really came down to that last roadblock and it had nothing to do with age or anything. That last roadblock everyone was even and it was anyone’s chance of winning. It wasn’t a physical task. I knew that Don impressed the hell out of me and a lot of other people and proved that he could do the entire race from start to finish, even at 68 years old.
JC: Right, this season was definitely an exception. Did you have a favorite part of the race?
TE: My favorite part or the highest part for me was making the train into Taipei and catching up to Nate and Jen and Nick and Don after the speedbump.
RR: I think mostly overall the challenges. I really loved that game part of it. Competing directly against other teammates and they were always unique challenges, so it was fun to find out what we would do next and what kind of mini-challenge we were going to be tested on.
JC: Right. Did either of you learn something about your partner that you didn’t know before the race?
TE: I kinda knew, but Rachel is really competitive. I think that she did a great job of being extremely competitive but doing it in the right way. I think a lot of times we might have came off as lackadaisical or not particularly in a rush. But the reason we did that is because, first, that’s how we are, but secondly, we felt that was the way we were going to be successful. So the fact that she was able to tone down, follow the game plan, and take it one step at a time, I couldn’t have been more proud.
JC: What about your Rachel? Did you learn anything about TK on the race that surprised you?
RR: Not really a surprise, but just the fact that he was so supportive all along and whenever there were times where I might be slipping and feeling negative about something, he always did a great job of bringing us back up. I just gained a lot more respect for him. He was such a good, strong partner the entire time.
JC: Yeah, cool. Do you have idea on what you will do with the money?
RR: Yeah, we have a few ideas. Basically we just have a couple of bills and things like that that we have to take care of and not have to think about anymore. Maybe just upgrade my wardrobe up a little bit and fix my house up a little bit, and the rest is for the future. And then we are going to do a lot of traveling too.
TE: For me, I’m excited because Rachel has always been a little bit of a workaholic and now we are going to have a little bit of money put away. It’s a good excuse to take some time off from work and hopefully get in some good traveling here in 2008.
JC: Very cool. Well thanks for your time and good luck with everything.
RR: Thank you.
TE: Thanks a lot and have a good one.
– 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.
