“You’ve Gotta Throw Your Hat in the Ring and at Least Try” – RealityNewsOnline’s Exclusive Interview with The Amazing Race 15's Gary & Matt

RealityNewsOnline: Hi, Gary & Matt! Thanks for talking to RealityNewsOnline!

Gary & Matt: No problem!

RNO: What made you decide to apply for The Amazing Race?

Matt: We’ve been fans of the race since day one. We love the idea; we love the concept. I was just never old enough. I turned 21 – we couldn’t do it that first year – but we said, “It’s now or never,” and we just put in an application and they picked us.

RNO: How far behind Brian & Ericka did you get to the Pit Stop?

Matt: Seven minutes.

RNO: How much time did the Speed Bump cost you?

Matt: About 20 [minutes].

RNO: So, the Speed Bump did you in. Matt, how long did you spend looking for the “candle-abra?”

Gary: You just had to, didn’t you?

(Both laugh.)

Matt: How long was that, dad?

Gary: You know, in actuality, it probably didn’t take him any longer to do the Roadblock than the others – after watching it. Because the others struggled with finding the rooms and going through that.

That’s the tough part when you’re running behind. In all due respect, even though he couldn’t say it or know what one was, it would have been so much easier if we had been there while any other teams were carrying them around or he saw them on the table. Because there was one on the table when he walked in. If there had been five or six there… It didn’t cost us the race, that’s for sure.

RNO: Gary, in the previous leg, how hard was it unrolling all of those bales of hay?

Matt: It was tough watching him!

Gary: It was the toughest challenge of the race for me. Just because it was one of those luck things, which is hard to take. It takes some strength to roll them out, but then if you all just had ten to go through – or something like that – it would have been easier to take rolling them out for four and a half hours. It was tough.

But you just can’t give up. You have to keep going and just hope –even though we remembered back to when Lena & Christie were there and they got eliminated on it. So, in the back of your mind, you hope they changed the way it was done.

RNO: Were you very relieved when you had a chance to catch up with the other teams at the ferry dock?

Gary: Oh, that was huge! Not only that, but it gave us a lot of down time and we had a lot of down time on the ferry to recover from it. It was pretty tough leg. Sam and I, we rolled out a ton of hay bales. There were 180-some in the field and there were 19 [remaining] when I left.

Matt: People don’t tend to realize – A week goes by when they see the next episode, when we’ve had a few hours of sleep and a cold meal and we’re off and running the next day. You don’t have that time to recharge your batteries and think about things.

RNO: Your farming skills rocked on the race. Were you surprised how much they came in handy?

Gary: Yeah, in many ways. Some of the tasks and things we had to do were kind of right up our alley – from Matt herding ducks and the mud and rolling hay bales. We had a lot of experience at doing different things. It was kind of neat!

RNO: Matt, some of the other contestants I’ve interviewed have remarked about your genuine joy and fascination with seeing other countries for the first time. Can you tell me what it was like for you to see the world in this way?

Matt: It was unreal. Seriously… Montana’s a beautiful state, but just the differences and craziness of every other country… It was just unreal! The congestedness of Ho Chi Minh, the peacefulness of Cambodia, the richness of Dubai, it was all just crazy.

Even sitting here in L.A… It’s just nuts! I mean, I can see the Hollywood sign from my window!

RNO:Gary, what did you learn about Matt on the race?

Gary: You know, you think about it, here’s a 22-year old who’s never been out of the country, thrown into situations – especially Roadblocks – where he was on his own. Man, he just stepped up every time! I mean, whether it was the water in the desert or the counting of the bells or the herding of the ducks and the VCR – whatever it was… If you look back on it, he just knocked it out every time he was called upon. That was really neat. It gives you, as a parent, confidence to know that if issues come up in life that he’ll be able to handle things in the future.

RNO: Matt, did you learn anything about your father on the race?

Matt: Growing up, you look at your parents and they are just infallible, perfect beings. As you grow older, you get to see their flaws and get to see their quirks and unique characteristics. Just to see him at a personal level like that just opened up our relationship tenfold.

RNO: Was there a location on the race you most enjoyed visiting?

Gary: As much as I hated the hay bales, Sweden was pretty cool.

Matt: As much as I hated the heat, Dubai was pretty sweet. It was nuts. We were on an island that was hand-built!

RNO: What was the smartest thing you did on the race?

Matt: We brought a second pair of shoes. In Vietnam, when everyone got their shoes all muddy and wet, and they had smelly shoes the entire trip and complained about it, we were sitting there saying, “Our shoes are fine.” Because they were in our pack and we had our other shoes on.

RNO: What surprised you most on the race?

Gary: How difficult it was. You sit and you watch it and you see people make mistakes, as you sit there on your couch, and you’re like, “Why are they doing that?” When you get thrust into it, the physical, emotional, and mental stress you go through… It’s really hard to put it in words how taxing it can be.

And it started right from when Phil said, “We made a change and someone’s going to be eliminated at the start.” That was sickening. I mean, you’re under pressure to begin with and when he said that – it was chaos at that point.

RNO: Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers about your experience on the race?

Gary: You know, there are so many people who have come up to me and said, “Oh, man! That was something I would love to do.” I ask everybody who says that, “Well, when have you sent your applications in?” And nobody has.

If you’re going to do things like this in life, you’ve gotta throw your hat in the ring and at least try. We got picked. It’s crazy. But, if you don’t try, you’re never going to get an opportunity.

Matt: [The race is like] like studying for the SATs. You don’t know what’s going to be on the test and you don’t know what to study for – and yet you’re trying to prepare. You’re doing this every time you open an envelope. You have no idea what it’s going to say or what you have to do. To try to prepare and be ready for what they’re going to throw at you is an impossibility. It’s just so stressful.

RNO: Thank you so much for talking to me today!

Gary: Thanks.

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