August 12, 2005

Next pit stop for The Amazing Race: San Jose

Recent tryouts for Season 9 held at Evergreen’s Beshoff MotorCars

By Bea Baechle
Editor

Approximately 300 applicants lined up outside of Beshoff MotorCars in Evergreen on a hot July 16 morning, dreaming of a chance to race around the world to win $1 million on the popular reality series, “The Amazing Race.”

About 300 people came to Beshoff MotorCars in Evergreen on July 17 to audition for the Amazing Race. All photos by Amanda Brittingham

Auditions for Episode 9, to air in the spring of 2006, drew people from the Bay Area and beyond, including a woman with a monkey and two Girl Scout leaders from the East Bay dressed as Girl Scout cookies.

The tight two-hour open casting call, however, meant that not everyone braving the scorching San Jose sun would make the cut at the car dealership on Tully Road and Capitol Expressway.

For those who did get an audition, The Amazing Race semifinalists will be called back to Los Angeles in September and finalists will return again in October. From that group, producers will pick the top 12 teams to be filmed for the spring 2006 episode of the Emmy-nominated show often dubbed the “most intelligent” reality series on TV.

If you’re not familiar with the show, 12 teams of two begin at the same location and will never know where they’re going next or what they’ll have to do once there. Along the way, the teams will compete in a series of tasks, some mental and some physical, before learning their next destination.

College buddies Ray Sotto and Carla Siqueiros

Restricted plane travel and strict budgets add to the tension as teams are forced to rely on wit and ingenuity, and the teams farthest behind will be eliminated as the race progresses. The first team to arrive at the final destination wins $1 million.

The Times spoke to some of the applicants from San Jose to find out what persuaded them to audition and how they would travel around the world gathering clues and accomplishing tasks to reach each destination before the competing teams.

“Everybody’s got to have an angle,” said Ray Sotto, a graduate from Independence High School and San Jose State University. He and his partner Carla Siqueiros, a Mt. Pleasant High School graduate, are best buddies from college and travel partners who have ventured to New Zealand together. He feels they worked as a really good team on that trip.

Siqueiros explained that unlike CBS’s other popular reality show “Survivor,” you’re not scheming against other players. “You’re really in competition with yourself; you and your partner are out to go beyond your own limits.”

She said she’s “watched every single episode” and for added luck, “we’ve got our good luck charm, this little alien we found in our rental car when we were in New Zealand. We take it everywhere with us.”

Best friends John Abinsay and Chris Dull

“It will test our friendship and how well we work together,” added Sotto.

Fermina Quinones and Mary Valderrama, who live in of Blossom Valley and the East foothills, were former co-workers.

“We have traveled together and we thought this would be a great opportunity to travel together again and see the world,” said Quinones, who was disappointed not to see Valderrama on a daily basis any more.

“Fermina likes challenges and she’s not afraid of stuff, and I can gab and go out and talk to people to try to figure out where to go and what we do,” added Valderrama.

And what about the $1 million prize? “Oh we forgot about that, we just want to travel … although the money would be nice,” quipped Quinones.

Marcelo Mota and his friend Javier Rodriquez of Evergreen joked that they will mentally divide and conquer and weed out all the competiion to get on the show. “I came here, I ordered my Mercedes, and we’re going to win the race. And when we come back, we’re going to pick it up,” said Mota.

John Abinsay and Chris Dull grew up together locally in Evergreen and have been best friends and neighbors for almost 20 years. They attended Millbrook Elementary School, Quimby Oak Middle School, and Silver Creek High School together until going their separate ways to attend college.

Abinsay and Dull echoed the sentiments of all the candidates interviewed, describing the opportunity to have a fantastic experience, with plenty of adventure, as well as their love for travel, especially for free.

They also felt that one team member’s common sense and the other’s ability to talk to people was also a winning combination, given the need to often make quick decisions and strategize the best way to get to the next destination on a very limited budget.

“The Amazing Race is my favorite TV show—just looking at the different cultures and the different places that you see,” said Willow Glen resident Sergio Hernandez. “I love to travel so this is the perfect opportunity to try to participate in something like this and learn new cultures and see new places. And the best part is traveling on someone else’s dime!”

Hernandez views himself as more of the strategic planner and his partner Faron Addison as the social mover and shaker who could get the help they needed from locals in a foreign country.

“If you understand the culture, it makes it easier to ask them for help to get to where you’re going,” added Hernandez, who speaks Spanish and some French, while Addison speaks some Egyptian and learning to speak Spanish.

To stand out from the rest of the crowd, two Girl Scout leaders from the East Bay dressed up as Girl Scout cookies.

Addison, who had stepped away to get something from his car, demonstrated his social skills by bringing an umbrella for the woman behind him in line who had been complaining about the heat.

Sister-in-laws Joann Cameron from the Rose Garden and Debra Cameron from Almaden Valley said they’ve been talking about auditioning for more than two years. They would watch the show and comment, “We can do that,” or “We can’t do that.”

Their goal was to be eliminated third, giving them some opportunity to travel, without being the first ones eliminated. “But I’d like a million dollars; it works for me,” said Cameron.

“It is the only reality show that takes almost everybody, from young to old; it’s not just the 20-somethings and it’s not seedy—it’s just fun,” she continued. “It has taste and it’s acceptable for all audiences.”

If any of the Bay Area’s local contestants make it on the show, they can be guaranteed that millions of viewers will watch, many from their own stomping grounds. A representative from KPIX-TV in San Francisco said that The Amazing Race averages 318,000 viewers locally each time it airs.

The new season of the Amazing Race airs on Tuesday, Sept. 27, on CBS, featuring families of four and children possibly as young as 8 years old. For more information, go to the Web: www.cbs.com/primetime.