As one of the Final 3 teams racing for the one million dollar prize, Trey Wier and Lexi Beerman represented their home state of Texas during a leg that whirled them around the Big Apple – New York City! After fighting their way to the final leg of The Amazing Race, Trey and Lexi (@LexiBeerman) powered their way through Coney Island, became the first team to reach the Houdini escape Road Block, and burned up the streets of New York by delivering pizzas. Even after leading the pack for most of the leg, the final Road Block tripped up Lexi as she attempted to match the greetings and salutations to the corresponding countries they visited. The Yak got a chance to sit down recently with the Texans and discussed their involvement with the Rockers found money, the toughest challenges, and what the future holds for the dating couple.
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The Yak: It was awesome watching you two on the race, and you had a lot of fans pulling for you to win the million dollar prize!
Lexi: Thank you. That’s very sweet of you!
The Yak: Let’s jump right into it – the situation with the found money and the Twinnies. How did that come up between your two teams? Was there any discussion of giving it back to James and Abba?
Lexi: When we watched the show, it was edited in a way where was was shown wasn’t exactly what happened. We found the money on the ground, we weren’t even 100% sure it was Abba and James’ money at the time, and Natalie and Nadiya found the money on the ground. When the CBS promo put “stealing” into the viewers minds, it came across even worse then it should have been. If anyone knows the rules of the race, even touching someone’s bag is illegal in the Amazing Race rules. So, we got permission that it was okay that we found the money, and we really didn’t think too much of it after that. Not knowing that it was going to be a big scandal on the race.
The Yak: With the race, what was the hardest challenge that the two of you faced?
Lexi: Physically, the hardest challenge was in Bangladesh where we moved the bamboo. It was 120 degrees, and because we were in a primarily Muslim country, all the girls had to wear long sleeves and long pants. So, we’re moving heavy bamboo and it was just an exhausting day. Physically, for me, that was the most challenging. Then, mentally, obviously, the last challenge of The Amazing Race – translating “Hello” and “Goodbye”. It’s so simple when you really think about it, but it was hard for me because I felt like every single challenge that we did, we had control over the outcome. We couldn’t move the bamboo fast enough. I couldn’t figure out the time zone challenge in Russia. It was all on me, and I felt like with the “Hello/Goodbye” challenge, I just lacked the control over the situation and it really just came down to a tricky math problem. That was the most challenging challenge of all.
Trey: The physical challenges when we were in Indonesia and Bangladesh really took a toll on all of us. The first real time I ever got stumped was having to complete the bus challenge. The whole time, I was trying to stay positive, yet all I could think of was how I was doing terrible at it. I was looking over at Rob and he was killing it when he was puttying the bus. He does that for a living with his monster trucks, and I’ve never done anything like that before, so I was thinking that I was letting the team down. It was so physically demanding, and then it became emotionally demanding when I realized I was one of the last two teams standing there. So, that was really rough. Then, we had the bamboo challenge, where we knew if we screwed up on counting the bamboo, we had to go back, so those were some tough legs. Once we got through that, it seemed like we really picked up momentum and speed and we stayed in the top after those legs, so we struggled in the beginning, but it seemed like we kept getting stronger and stronger after every leg.
The Yak: What was your favorite part of the race?
Lexi: Hmmm… I think there were two things that were my most favorite part. Number one: Trey and I have never traveled outside of the country before, and we got to go to nine different countries together. It was just insane. One of the camera guys said that we looked like wide-eyed puppies the whole time because we were just taking everything in for what it was. It was incredible. Opening our eyes to countries like Bangladesh and countries that nobody every goes to for a vacation was really, really special. Even though I was kind of scared being in those countries, I’m so grateful that we had the opportunity to go. I think that’s a really cool part about the Amazing Race – it’s that they open the eyes of the viewers to countries that don’t get a lot of attention in the media or toursim in general. That was incredible, and number two, spending 30 days with Trey. The year leading up to going on the race, Trey was finishing up his final year at college and playing football, and I was working 60 hours a week for my mom’s tee-shirt company. It was a hard year, and we only got to see each other once a week, so having 30 quality days, traveling the country and being competitive, which is something that is instilled in both of us, it was absolutely incredible and definitely a dream come true.
The Yak: When you found out that you had been cast for the race, did you do anything special to prepare?
Trey: I don’t know if we really did anything special. We watched the episodes over and over again, trying to catch on to certain things or anything we needed to train for. We tried to get in as best shape as possible. I tried to teach Lexi how to drive a standard transmission.
Lexi: [laughs]
Trey: You know, in case we ever got into a pickle. Just things like that.
Lexi: It’s hard to study for something like going into the race because you’re like, “Where do we start? We have the whole world to study!” Having gone nowhere and knowing nothing about anything outside of the US, it was quite a challenge and a little overwhelming when you though about it, so we concentrated on just being in the best physical shape that we could be. We did a bunch of random things, like going bowling and doing random tasks that you don’t do on a normal basis. Anything to just put us ahead.
The Yak: What does the future hold for Trey and Lexi?
Lexi: [long pause and then laughs]
Trey: We don’t really have anything planned out as far as our relationship. Lexi and I have wanted to get married for the past couple of year, but we’ve been in school and I haven’t really had time to work because of football. Now, I have a good paying job, and I want to be able to give her the ring she deserves and support her, so the future for us – maybe marriage soon. Who knows? As for now, we’re just going to enjoy being together.
Lexi: We’re excited for the holidays. We love Christmas!
The Yak: We wish the two of you the best of luck, both in your relationship and in your lives. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us!
Trey: Absolutely!
Lexi: Thank you so much!