April 30, 2013 – YakkityYaks

Airport mishaps and Double U-Turns faced the teams in the latest leg of The Amazing Race this week, as they continued their trek around the globe with a stop in Scotland. When the first 3 teams, consisting of Max & Katie, Bates & Anthony, and Caroline & Jennifer, grabbed an earlier flight to Scotland, it left Mona & Beth and Joey Graceffa (@JoeyGraceffa) & Meghan Camarena (@Strawburry17) to battle it out at the back of the pack. The Double U-Turn, which had the teams make (and then eat) haggis and roll barrels of Whiskey up-hill to a party, slowed down the YouTube hosts and ultimately led to their elimination this week. The Yak sat down with the peppy dynamic duo to discuss their race around the world.

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The Yak: It was a great leg of the race, but it was tough to see you battle it out with Mona and Beth for last place.
Meghan: Right? That was sad.
Joey: Yeah.

The Yak: So, I have to know, which was tougher: the barrels of Whiskey or the haggis?
Joey: The barrels.
Meghan: Barrels.
Joey: They were like 10 times harder.
Meghan: That haggis was delicious! Haggis has a bad rap! We hadn’t eaten all day, so maybe it did taste just like chocolate cake for some reason, but that thing was amazing. The barrels were a complete hell.

The Yak: Obviously, both you and the Moms had to do both Detours thanks to the Double U-Turn. How far behind were you once you made it to the Pit Stop?
Joey: We don’t really know, but we want to say it was maybe a half-hour or so.
Meghan: We really had no clue. As we were racing to the mat, we were thinking, “Maybe… Maybe!”, but we had no idea.

The Yak: If you had made it onto the earlier flight with the other 3 teams, who would you have U-Turned or would you have used it at all?
Meghan: It would have been the hockey players.
The Yak: Did you perceive them as the biggest threats?
Meghan: They’re professional athletes. They’re everyone’s biggest threats.
Joey: Yeah, people are stupid for not seeing that.

The Yak: Joey, before you left for the race, you mentioned you had a fear of flying. Were you able to overcome that fear and were there any flights in particular that were terrifying for you?
Joey: I got over that fear real quick! Also, being with all the teams helped. It wasn’t a problem.

The Yak: What was your favorite location along the race?
Joey: Berlin, Germany, for sure. Well, I guess that was the most fun.
Meghan: I liked Bora Bora.
Joey: Yeah, Bora Bora. New Zealand.
Meghan: New Zealand.
Joey: Those were both great!

The Yak: What was your favorite challenge?
Meghan: It wasn’t a challenge, but when we got to jump off the building [The Park Inn in Berlin, Germany], that was sick.
Joey: Yeah, that was fun. My favorite Road Block was the labyrinth one inside the Salon.

The Yak: Even after being prepared for the race, did anything surprise you during your journey?
Meghan: This sounds foolish, but I really wasn’t expecting the amount of hate that we got from all the other teams. I felt like I was back in high school and being picked on. It felt like we were being picked on, and it was the worst.
Joey: Also, I thought we’d have a lot more money for food and stuff. I was hungry the entire race! I should have packed some Clif bars! The way they give us the money, they don’t tell us what’s ahead. We could have used the money for a cab or for a cheeseburger. It was our choice.
The Yak: That’s good advice for anyone that’s planning on applying for future seasons of the race. Make sure you come prepared!
Joey: Definitely bring Clif bars!

The Yak: Speaking of being prepared, did you do anything special to prepare yourself for the race once you found out you had been selected as one of the teams?
Joey: I was working with a personal trainer five days a week. So, I was prepared that way. We also watched a ton of previous seasons.
The Yak: Did you find that it helped you out on the race by studying the previous seasons?
Joey: Yeah, it gave us an idea of what to expect for our season.
Meghan: For sure!
Joey: There’s no way to know what we’re going to encounter, but it’s good to know what people do in different situations.

The Yak: Were you able to get close with any of the other teams beyond Mona & Beth, and have you kept in touch since the race ended?
Meghan: John and Jessica. We’re really close with them, and they actually live pretty close to us, so we still talk with them.
Joey: Yeah, we’ve hung out with them a few times.

The Yak: Was there ever a time when you weren’t entirely sure of yourselves or you second-guessed what you were doing on the race?
Joey: We were second-guessing ourselves all the time, and I think that’s what really screwed us up.
Meghan: At the beginning of the race, we did that a lot! Then we realized that we needed to make a decision and commit to it. In New Zealand, we did that the whole time, and we could have finished way sooner then we had, so after that, we stopped second-guessing ourselves.
Joey: Also, for a lot of the race we were busy worrying about what the other teams were up to, so in Berlin when we didn’t see any of the other teams, we focused on what we had to do and we came in second place. I think that was the key to it.
The Yak: Is that good advice for future teams: Make a gut decision and stick with it?
Joey: Yeah.
Meghan: Definitely.

The Yak: What’s next for the two of you?
Meghan: Geez, who knows what’s next? We’re definitely pursuing more acting and continuing our YouTube channel. Also, seeing what opportunities open up after this. We’re really creative people, so anything that has to do with that, I’m sure you’ll see us being a part of that.

The Yak: We appreciate you sitting down with us, and we wish you the best of luck to you in the future!
Joey and Meghan: Thank you!

After making their way to Switzerland, the Amazing Race teams had the difficult task of trudging through snow to collect rescue dogs, traverse the side of a cliff, and a facing a Switchback that brought up one of the most memorable tasks in Amazing Race history – the downhill cheese sled. Many of the teams struggled to transport the 50-pound wheels of cheese down the snow covered hill using the provided sled, so the husband and wife team of Chuck and Wynona McCall decided to roll the cheese down the hill and chase after it. While it worked to get the task done quicker, the pair learned at the Pit Stop that they incorrectly transported the cheese, so they incurred a 30-minute penalty. During that time, the other teams checked in and ended Chuck and Wynona’s dreams of the million dollar prize. The Yak sat down with the eliminated team to discuss their time on the race.

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The Yak: It was a difficult elimination to watch, and I’m sure it must have been hard to get taken out of the game based on missing a step in the clue instructions. Since you had a 30-minute penalty before checking in, how close was Joey and Meghan to you after you made it to the Pit Stop?
Wynona: We were there, we checked in, and Phil told us we were fifth. We were all excited and happy. Then, Phil came back to us and said that we had a penalty we received, and we would have to wait out the 30 minutes. We were probably 15 to 20 minutes into the penalty, and then here comes Meghan and Joey. We didn’t know it was Meghan and Joey. It could have been anybody, since we didn’t know who was behind us. We knew that we were last off the hill, but we had no clue who it was.

The Yak: It had to be tough to know that you were only 10 minutes from making it through to the next leg.
Chuck: It was definitely difficult. Our smiles turned to frowns really quickly.

The Yak: Chuck, our members have been following you both all season, and now that you’ve had a chance to watch yourself on the show, they wanted to know if you feel bad for the ways that you treated Wynona during your time on the race?
Chuck: Yeah, when I look back and I see Wynona tearing up because she doesn’t think she can keep up with me, it definitely tugged on my heart strings to see her like that. In our normal, everyday life, we’re not under that much stress and we don’t act like that to each other, so it hurt to see me act like that toward her.

The Yak: You see it happen time and time again with teams on the race, where they snap at each other after being under that kind of stress day after day. It was good to see you mention during the exit interview that no matter what, you are both still a couple and it was nice to see the love you have for each other.
Chuck: We’re still together. We were never really pitted against each other in a competition like that. She’s the greatest mom, the greatest housewife, the greatest wife that anybody could ask for, so when she’s put in a spot where she feels like she has to keep up with me, since I like to get out and run like a gazelle and I was expecting her to do the same, so I think that’s where some of the bickering came into play. If I could take it back, I would.

The Yak: Obviously, you are really close with each other and you’ve been together a long time, but was there anything on the race that taught you something new about each other?
Chuck: When we got on the race, I told her that I would motivate her with kisses and hugs, but then it turned into “Faster. Come on! Come on!” Wynona is a trooper. We hung in there for eight legs in the race, even through being jet lagged and tired from no sleep. It really wasn’t that great, but I’m very proud of her. She made me proud of her through the whole race, and I wanted to get that out there.

The Yak: Wynona, are you proud of yourself for accomplishing things that you might not have had the opportunity to do without the race, like scaling the rock wall?
Wynona: I’m definitely proud of myself for finishing eight legs of the race. I never thought we’d even get chosen to go on the race, but to get that far even with me being injured at the beginning, it was amazing. Chuck really thought we were going to be out. It started with him being ticked off at me when I pulled a muscle before we even left, which hindered me the entire way, so I’m very proud of myself for making it through eight legs of the race with an injured leg.

The Yak: We hadn’t seen any of that backstory, so it’s impressive to see what you were able to accomplish with an injury.
Wynona: It was hard to run for the first couple of legs during the race. I really couldn’t run, so having a couple of long flights really helped us out, but it was making Chuck mad that I was injured. It was just like the father and son [David and Connor], when he got injured. I mean, nobody wants to get injured as you end up with limitations on what you can do and how far you can go.

The Yak: What was your biggest challenge during the race?
Chuck: As far as the Road Blocks or physical challenges we did, my biggest challenge was Vietnam. When we were over there, we had a bad day because we couldn’t communicate with anybody. Everything was “No problem! No problem!”, but we’d end up on the other side of town. We couldn’t get a taxi that would get us to the right place. That definitely sticks out in my mind as one of the toughest parts.
Wynona: My biggest challenge was the communication in places we went where they didn’t speak English. It was very hard. You couldn’t get from point A to point B with anyone who spoke English.

The Yak: Did you do anything special to prepare for the race once you found out you had been selected?
Wynona: We both did different things. We still had to handle our home life, as we have kids and had a house to take care of. I went to the gym and trained on my own at home. Plus, I tried to gather the items that I thought we’d need for the race, but you don’t get a lot of instructions for that. You plan on going from extreme hot to extreme cold, so you pack what you want to carry in your backpack and you try to be prepared for every scenario. As far as working out and things like that, we did.
Chuck: I went out and bought a world map, so I could study it. I was trying to do my homework in learning the dangerous cities and countries. I tried to spend more time looking at the map then in physically working out, as I thought I was in pretty good shape at the time. I got more into the studying the map type of working out.

The Yak: Probably a smart move! Did you get a chance to get close with any of the other teams, and have you been able to keep in touch since the race ended?
Wynona: Yeah, we keep in touch with pretty much all of them. We were pretty close with Max and Katie and the country singers [Caroline and Jen] and the hockey team [Anthony and Bates]. That was our group.
Chuck: Wynona is online with them all the time. Actually, Anthony has come down here and played hockey in our area, so we ran over and got to watch him play hockey, too. Those three other teams are probably our closest.

Chuck helps Wynona up the snow covered hill

The Yak: So, what’s next for the two of you?
Chuck: We want to come back for [Amazing Race] Unfinished Business, so we can straighten this out. [laughs]
Wynona: I’m going to ship him off to Survivor, so we can see how he does by himself.
The Yak: That would definitely be entertaining to watch. I’m sure a lot of people would tune in to see that. [Chuck and Wynona laugh]

The Yak: Thanks so much for your time! We wish both of you the best of luck!
Wynona: Thanks!
Chuck: Thank you!

Day: April 30, 2013

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Joey and Meghan

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Chuck and Wynona