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EXCLUSIVE: Bungee Talking with Amazing Race 14 Eliminees Jennifer and Preston
by Reg Seeton
 The Amazing Race returned for its 14th season, sending a new group of teams around the world in a high adrenaline international footrace for a million dollars. When the first episode The Amazing Race was over, fans got to see a number of format tweaks that included a slightly remixed theme, split-screen action between challenges and the race, and various time stamps.
The first leg of Season 14 saw the new round of teams head to Switzerland and find their way by train for a quick sleep-over in the town of Interlaken before racing away to one of the most "amazing" road-blocks in Amazing Race history, the 2nd highest bungee jump in the world. In fact, it was the same dam that James Bond bungee'd from in the movie Goldeneye. From there the teams raced into an uphill battle that pitted each duo against one another while attempting to carry 50 pound blocks of Swiss cheese on their backs to stack into 200 pound towers to get their final clue.
And when the first leg of the 14th edition of CBS' The Amazing Race ended at the feet of host Phil Keoghan, dating couple Jennfer Hopka and Preston McCamy from South Carolina were eliminated from the race by just a few steps after a close sprint against flight attendants Christie and Jodi.
Shortly after President's Day, we set out in search of the latest Amazing Race eliminees but quickly hit a road-block when we ran into an office filled with hundreds of ringing telephones and had to figure out which one had Preston and Jennifer on the line for an exclusive chat. Luckily the first phone we picked up was our fast forward into our exclusive follow-up chat with Preston and Jennifer to learn more about their early elimination, the experience of The Amazing Race, and what it was like to bungee in Switzerland James Bond style.
THE DEADBOLT: So, I’m really interested to know how the bungee jump went. What was the feeling like?
 PRESTON MCCAMY: Dude! It was crazy, man. I’ve skydived a bunch of times before so I thought, "Man, this will just be cake. It won’t be a problem." But when you get over there and you see how far it is and you see that there is nothing but rocks down there, there’s no water or anything, that was it. It was just a mental thing. If there had been water, I’m like, "If it pops me up and it snaps I’ll just fall in the water." But there’s nothing but rocks down there, and I’m easily 30 pounds heavier than everybody who is jumping. I couldn’t tell how they were hooking me up, but I knew that they brought out a different bungee just for me.
JENNIFER HOPKA: Everybody used a single bungee, it was like a skinnier bungee cord, and Preston gets up there - They weigh you before you get on and they do this little like mock thing where they pick you up in the air and kind of show you what you’ll feel. Well, when Preston gets up there - Preston was the heaviest of all of the racers - so they stopped the machine that they were putting on the rope with, they changed the bungee cord out, and Preston had to use the double bungee.
PRESTON: So they’re sitting there switching out the bungee and I’m like, "Hey! Look, guys, I know I’ve seen that one come up and down a few times. What are you guys doing"
JENNIFER: He was a little nervous because they changed the bungee cord. Obviously we’ve seen everybody else jump off of this one cord and it’s kind of scary. They have to change the cord and ... that cord has never been used. Well, it has on other people, but not on anybody in our race.
PRESTON: I was like, "Man, this is a cruel joke. It’s going to pop just when I get to the final extension of it and go head-first into some jagged rocks."
THE DEADBOLT: How do you guys feel about your relationship? What did the experience do for your relationship?
JENNIFER: On the race they showed that we fought a lot and, actually, that first leg was a really long leg. It was about 3 to 3.5 days of racing and they only show an hour. So they showed one part where Preston and I got a bad taxi driver and we were first pretty much this whole part of the leg out of our group, out of our flight. We were the first in front of everybody. We were the first to the airport, the first out of the airport, the first in the taxi line. We had a good lead on people, at least a good - How far ahead of everybody would you say, bro?
PRESTON: We had a good five minutes on them. I mean, they were pretty close behind us coming out of the airport.
 JENNIFER: Yeah. It was still close, but we were in the lead. We got in the taxi and we had to go through a toll and our taxi didn’t have a speed pass. But everybody else gets in front of us because they’re speeding through the toll line while we’re stuck in traffic having to pay the toll. So we did that. The taxi driver got out and paid. We also got the taxi driver that didn’t speak English. So we tell him we need to go this way, we need to go through customs, and we need to do this. He’s looking at us like [we're crazy] because we’re speaking to him in English and it’s a foreign language to him. So he takes us the way he wants to take us, and we’re like, "Please don’t go this way."
Well, he looked at us, shook his head, and we look up and see the big sign that says "do not go this way." For us, pretty much, that threw us three hours behind and that’s why we missed the train, because we got stuck in customs. It was later that we knew we were behind and it was about three hours. So that was a lot of stress at that point in time because we knew we were going to be last. Thank God it wasn’t a pit stop we were on our way to because we would’ve been gone.
Just that stress of us missing the train, it was getting dark outside, we got in that little bickering in the train and they showed that and it looked like we were fighting the whole time and we didn’t. We were very supportive and loving the whole entire time. We never fought during the race or while running or anything.
PRESTON: When it came to the challenges and the road-blocks, and all of that other stuff, it was, "Come on, you can do it. We've got to get through this. We've got to finish it. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! Let’s hustle.’ The times where you have to sit down and you’re not scheming or planning you next move and you’re tired - we didn’t sleep for three days. We didn’t spend any of our money on anything except for transportation.
JENNIFER: Yeah. Our initial leg money, we paid, the only thing we bought was transportation.
PRESTON: So, we’re hungry. I mean I eat a lot, it’s just the way it is, and I haven’t eaten in two days. I’m not going to be the most pleasant person to be around.
THE DEADBOLT: Since you were so hungry and tired, how tough was it going into the cheese challenge?
JENNIFER: Well, you read your clue and of course you’re tired. We didn’t sleep or eat for those three days. So this was the third day and we were running, pretty much, and you get out there and you see this - It was not a hill! It was like a cliff straight up and down. You look at it and go, "Oh, no. Problem we work out. We’ve got the strength."
Halfway up the hill we’re walking, and it’s so steep that we had to basically climb up it. and it was wet. It had rained that day and there was poop all over it. It was covered with cow, sheep, and goat poop. You couldn’t stand straight if you wanted to. So it was very frustrating knowing we were these two physically fit people and we can’t even stand up straight. We were busting our butts the whole way up and in our minds we were going to carry all 200 pounds at the same time.
THE DEADBOLT: What was the biggest thing that you didn’t expect from the race?
 JENNIFER: I’d say there were two things that I didn’t expect. Watching previous seasons I’ve seen them do all of these things, and I’m like, "Are you kidding me? That’s easy. I could’ve done that." But when you get into it - I did not expect our first leg to be two of the hardest challenges in Amazing Race history. I definitely did not expect that. I’m like, "Oh, God. They always have easy challenges." And then they spring that on us and were like, "Oh, my God. This is hard. We’re going to have the toughest season."
Then the lucky part - The race is a lot of luck. You don’t win because you’re physically fit or you’re smarter than everybody else, you've got a lot of luck. You get in the wrong taxi that’s going to take you in the wrong direction. You can run out of gas. You can get a flat tire. I mean, you can just have bad luck along the way. In our case, that is what happened to us.
Then you definitely don’t expect how tired you’re going to be. You think, "Oh, they’re going to get to stay in a hotel and they’re gong to get to eat, and there’s nothing." That's what you’re thinking in your head. But on the race we ran for three days, we didn’t eat, we didn’t sleep, and we didn’t bathe.
PRESTON: For me it was just the unknown stuff that I didn’t know, because I hadn’t traveled. The Customs stuff slowed us down. I didn’t even think when you fly into Italy and you’re going to go from Italy into Switzerland that you’re going to have to go through Customs before you get to the train and that it might slow you down. So it’s stuff like that that I didn’t even think of. And I didn’t think I’d get as little sleep as I did. I don’t sleep well on planes anyway so I counted that in there. But when we got to the first spot outside in Switzerland, I didn’t sleep at all. I’m used to not getting a lot of sleep but I just got zero.
JENNIFER: Actually, I think every team got some sleep except for Preston and I. Preston made the fire. Preston and I sat by the fire and, slowly but surely, other teams stated to join us because they were getting woken up. But it was so cold. We were sleeping on hay in the mountains and it was snowing outside. So it was freezing and we had one blanket for me and Preston to share, which obviously was not going to keep us warm.
PRESTON: I’ll tell you: That was the first time I was ever envious of Luke, because there were snores in there. I told him the next day, "Man, you were so lucky that night."
 JENNIFER: He had a travel sleeping bag, which is like hunting gear, and every time he moved it sounded like a Doritos bag - crunch, crunch, crunch. We called him Brad the Bear because between Brad and Mel they were snoring so loud that you couldn’t sleep. At this give point I told Luke in the end, "I envy you, because I think all of us, we were deaf at that point. We couldn’t hear that. Between the snores and you rustling in your sleeping bag, I don’t think anybody could’ve slept."
THE DEADBOLT: Going forward, who do you think the strongest competitors are?
JENNIFER: I think everybody. I think it was fair game. I think everybody was great. In the end Karma kind of nipped Preston in the butt because he underestimated Steve and Linda, and they ended up beating us. Obviously we were fist out. So I think everybody, everybody is smart. We obviously found out ourselves. It was a lot of luck. So you could have the strongest teams out first, which I think we were one of the strongest teams there and we were first out. You’ve seen that in previous seasons. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of good teams being the first eliminated. But it’s a fair chance.
PRESTON: All of the teams are good. Some are a little smarter. Some are a little more athletic. But when we got off of it, we started looking back at it and it takes a ton of luck. Just one misstep, no matter where you’re at, and you can go from the front to the back.
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