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Stacking Siberian Wood with Amanda and Kris of The Amazing Race 14
by Reg Seeton
 If you've been following the 14th edition of CBS' The Amazing Race, you've probably noticed that the teams have been put to the test quick since we've already seen a number of tough roadblocks and detours. After racing their way to Romania where the teams wound up in Transylvania, this week the Amazing teams departed for the harsh and barren terrain of Siberia where almost all of racers were caught flat-footed by a patience-testing roadblock of stacking wood.
Although New York sister team Lakisha and Jennifer were one of the only teams that didn't have much trouble stacking a huge 5-foot high by 10-feet wide edifice of Siberian timber, San Diego couple Amanda and Kris found themselves in a world of wooden Amazing Race hurt. After several attempts of stacking only to see hours of work go down the race drain when wood began to fall, Amanda and Kris then tried their hand at building window frames with Mel and Mike, and Mark and Michael.
But this week of The Amazing Race saw a new twist in what was called a Blind U-Turn, where teams could turn another around to complete a previous challenge and set them back without knowing whose hands they fell victim to. And when the trio of teams had finished the Siberian roadblock, Amanda and Kris were U-Turned by the the most unlikely team in Margie and Luke. When the leg of the race was over, it was the Blind U-Turn from Margie and Luke that sealed the fate of Amanda and Kris as they were eliminated from The Amazing race.
 The next morning we raced to the phone to take a call from latest Amazing Race eliminees Amanda and Kris to find out what it was like in Siberia, which country had the best cabs, what they thought of the U-Turn, and the secret to building a wall of wood that doesn't topple over when you touch it.
THE DEADBOLT: How long did the wood-stacking challenge really take to complete?
AMANDA BLACKLEDGE: You know what? It’s really hard to say. We keep getting that question. But honestly, the time factor, I couldn’t tell you if it was three hours or forty five minutes to be honest. You don’t really realize how much time is going by when you’re doing the tasks because you’re never looking at your watch. But, I mean, we were there all day. We arrived probably before noon in that village and when we checked in it was dark out. So that whole day was spent in that fishing village.
KRIS KLICKA: Yeah, for sure.
THE DEADBOLT: So what’s the secret to stacking Siberian wood?
KRIS: [laughs] We figured out it’s pretty much getting the flat pieces on the side and the janky ones in the middle is the way to go. But it was tough. You have to get it exactly right or the thing just tumbles right over.
THE DEADBOLT: So when did you guys learn who it was that U-Turned you?
 AMANDA: We found out about that, actually, when we were sequestered from the other teams. It was about a week or so afterward that we found out. But what they don’t show on the show is that the day before we were eliminated, we were in Romania having lunch and the entire cast was sitting at two different tables. Afterwards Luke and Margie approached Kris and I and they were like, "Yeah, you know, at our table we were talking about the U-Turn and every single team at our table said that they would never use it, including us. And the only team who said they would was Jen and Kisha, and they said you’d be stupid not to use it."
Then, at the end of the show, we told Jen and Kisha that we accused them and we felt bad, and they said, "Well, why did you guys accuse us?" We told them what Margie had said and they said, "That’s complete B.S. We never ever said that. We don’t know why she made it up." So when we found out it was Luke and Margie, I mean, it was the last team we thought because she went out of her way the day before to come up to us and make up a complete story just to throw us off. And that was just really hard for us to grasp.
KRIS: We really felt like it was a cheap shot, you know?
THE DEADBOLT: Well, when do you guys think they started to see you as a threat?
 KRIS: You know, they didn’t show a lot of the cheese hill in the first episode. Due to our getting the wrong flight and the trains and all of that stuff, we got to the cheese hill at the back of the pack. And we ended up blowing through that, passing almost everybody who was there. So they were all like, "Oh, my gosh! These guys are fast, we need to watch out for them." And that was kind of the topic among everybody from then on out. Then we got to Romania and blew through all of that stuff and I stupidly set my fanny pack down. Obviously that cost us first place and we lost a trip to Costa Rica. That was a bummer.
THE DEADBOLT: Who would you guys U-Turn if you could go back and do it again? Would it be Margie and Luke?
KRIS: Going into the race, we really didn’t want to use a U-Turn or anything like that. We wanted to play the game as fair as possible. We don’t want to win just because of us doing something sneaky. So we really wanted to win because we deserved it. That was kind of something that we initially thought we would never do unless it came down to the wire and we were neck-and-neck with another team and that was our only option.
THE DEADBOLT: As a leg of the race, how much different was Siberia from Romania?
 KRIS: Oh, my God! It was like being on another world to be honest with you. It was just culture shock. I mean, the people - everybody’s mannerisms are completely opposite of here. I mean, everyone was drinking all of the time. It didn’t matter what time of day it was, everyone was drinking. It’s just a different culture but it was really cool to see.
THE DEADBOLT: So what country has the best cabs?
AMANDA: Kris and I had awesome luck with cabs the whole race, really. In Romania we had this awesome cab driver. When we first got in the cab, we got out at the same time as everyone else and he passed all of the teams. We saw teams taking other corners, like taking other streets, and we were like, "Hey, how come you’re not going that way?" And he was like, "Those guys are just taking those teams that way because it’s the longer way and they’re trying to make more money." So he totally got us there. He took shortcuts and he got us to everywhere faster.
KRIS: We got lucky. When we got in the taxi we ended up talking to the guy and it turned out that he spoke perfect English and he studied in England for a few years. So he spoke perfect English, which the other teams didn’t have that advantage at that point. Their taxi drivers only spoke Romanian. So it was really nice to have him and he was really into it once we told him that - I mean, we couldn’t say we were on The Amazing Race, but that he’s on TV on an American travel show. That’s what he was told. He was super stoked on that idea and was really willing to help us out and try to cut corners by speeding around. It was cool.
THE DEADBOLT: When did you notice the chemistry between everyone change since it was getting more competitive?
AMANDA: You know what? I think it got more cutthroat after we left, because the race is getting more serious. After we were eliminated, it was just getting really serious and people were starting to realize that this is a cutthroat game. And I think after Luke and Marcie U-Turned us, everyone kind of got freaked out by that. But I think it got more cutthroat after.
KRIS: Yeah, I think by them using the U-Turn it kind of made the game go a little more cutthroat. Everyone’s going, "Oh, I wonder if they’re going to do that to us next time?" So I think that was kind of the stepping-stone to everyone getting crazy.
THE DEADBOLT: Did you guys find that Christie and Jodi had an advantage in the airports since they're flight attendants?
 AMANDA: They actually talked to us after the race and they were kind of laughing about it, because they said it gave them a disadvantage being flight attendants for Southwest. They said, "What people don’t realize is that Southwest is only within the United States." So they’ve had no international experience and they also said that they never have to buy tickets or call airlines because they have this nice little pass that just gets them right through security gates. They don’t ever have to buy tickets or deal with ticket counters. So they said it was almost a disadvantage. It threw everyone off because the first couple of legs everyone was like, "If it comes to buying flights, everyone knows the blondes have the advantage." But in fact. they didn’t.
THE DEADBOLT: Kris, what did you make of the letter challenge?
KRIS: I got it really quick. My second try, I actually guessed it. But to be honest with you, I had no idea who Chekhov was. I just pretty much tried to make the letters sound as Russian as possible. I put them together like "Chek-hov." I don’t know. The way I was matching them up, I figured it out pretty quick.
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