The Amazing Race 37: Brett Hamby and Mark Romain Post-Elimination Interview

let's get into it i'm excited to talk with the two of you guys i mean uh talk about just a

sudden shift in momentum as the two of you being both uh knowing your way around movement you can

understand how that that might happen so i imagine re-watching it must have been an experience in

and of itself considering the momentum you were riding both like in person and watching yourselves

back as well. Yeah, absolutely. To put it lightly. Yeah. I feel like watching it back. I was actually

pretty pleased that I felt like we were having fun more than it felt like at the time. And so I was

really proud to see that. And, you know, watching it back, I think we really underestimated how

strong of a team we were. So to see like what we actually could accomplish under pressure and being

with our backup. So while I was really proud to see, yeah. Well, yeah. Oh, go ahead. So go ahead

No, I, I just, yeah, no, I just, it was, it was interesting

especially this like to watch us back. But yeah, we still have fun

No, no. So that was nice. Well, let's rewind back before any of this racing began

And let's talk about what got you on the show in the first place, because again, you two are booked and blessed in multiple ways

So I'm curious, what was your history with the show? And what was the process that made you guys decide

that this was something you wanted to do yourself? Well, we, I, back in the day, we were fans for a long time

So I would watch with my grandparents and he would watch with his grandparents before we met

Since the show started. So we've been watching this from season one. Yeah

So we've been big fans. And we talked about that when we were dating and all that jazz

And, you know, what came up? I'll tell you. I'll tell you what came up. You don't have to ask me twice. No, we've always said we're going to be on the race since we first got together over 10 years ago. And over time, we wanted to apply and we got to a place where we didn't have the same day off for at least like the last seven or eight years besides COVID. And we were like, we need something to change. We need to get away

we really wanted to feel like a team again because we had been kind of dividing and conquering in

life and so the race really gave us an opportunity to get away from the world and kind of remind

ourselves what it looked like when we are a team and we kept just saying we're gonna do it saying

we're gonna do it and then one day it was like now let's just do it now get it let's just do it

yeah I think like I mean I think that's what's special about the race is that we just really

wanted some time together we really wanted to feel like a team and so like watching it back like

seeing that like we are a good team um meant a lot yeah and that's what we really wanted yeah

well let's fast forward from the beginning to the very end here some of the events that you

were talking about watching back because to say it was a roller coaster of a leg would be an

understatement where you started and last for most of it and then you arrive at the detour in second

and then Alyssa and Josiah which we didn't know Josiah Alyssa and us we thought we were fighting

for last so we spent the whole because we love Josiah Alyssa and we're so close to them so we

spent the whole detour being like I hate I love you and I hope you lose I'm so sorry it's us

against you it's us against you and that was hard yeah yeah so then you know once you end up finishing

this detour there's a couple decisions that are being made namely the one to say maybe to your

point about feeling like you were in last like, well, let's not give him too much lead time. Let's try to tail him. And even though you lose them, we then also see you run into

Han and Holden And I know at least I was thinking like well maybe you could tail them and just try to outrace them to the pit stop so talk to me about everything that was going on in this navigation to the pit stop that had you falling into last totally so great question we gonna

i think i'm gonna back up just to before so like getting that stork thing going

was a challenge uh because we're just missing the little tiny details which

we didn't he didn't even do for a while um and then we saw them leave we're like hey my

my brilliant idea was to follow them and we just couldn't get all in the car to get them and we

lost them it's this little this little town yeah so i think you know the street signs are like if

there are some they're like little bitty baby ones and i think it's important to know that like

the stork we were like in someone's backyard down in ellie so the only person available to ask for

directions were the people just ian unless that we're talking to so we were just kind of in line

waiting to ask for directions and we were like we can't be doing this yeah let's just follow them

them we lost them and there's no one in this tent we it's it's fair we accidentally we accidentally

end up in the little town square where han and holden are they're coming they're leaving we

didn't even think to follow them because we were like that didn't work already we get out so near

the laundry there's tons of people to ask but no one wanted to give us directions we asked like

three groups of people we finally get the people who asked on han and holden and we asked them for

directions and then we so it would happen I think because that point we were just so like

we were just we were just so like getting he he was you know I whatever we got the directions and

every time he would get in the car after getting the directions like oh I got it I got it I got it like cool let's go he'd get in the car be like I don't know where I'm going and I'm like oh I I

don't know because you had the direction so I couldn't help him so we ended up asking another

another family which is so cute uh hello baby it was really cute and then we we got to a point

where like i could see the flag and i was like we need to go there and just trying to the direction

that he got to that point just like kind of didn't and also this is up in the middle of the vineyard

so it's all imagine all of our cars are just like yeah you turning driving into random we don't want

backyard someone's house like you know so um so like and so i think it was a moment where and we

discussed this is we spent 10 10 legs of the race never giving up we also had some bad luck

and this was probably the first leg where it felt like we were making poor decisions

and and that was really really hard but i'd say one out of 10 legs isn't the worst however it's

not the best time for it to happen yeah exactly well i mean to that point it's so interesting to

have you guys vocalize after the first few legs like we are killing it why is it not showing in

our placements and you know that that you know ignition does turn on at a certain point once you

start getting that first place finish during the the u-turn vote but talk to me a bit about that

from your own perspective you know were you surprised to have i wouldn't even say those

struggles but like having those placements those middle of the pack finishes early on

not be a reflection of what you believe your racing skills can truly be i mean it it kind of

worked in some ways in terms of like the u-turn in the driver's seat but also like you know it

part of the race is luck like you you know we may have gotten ourselves lost a little bit in that

last leg but the rest of the time you just we we got a taxi who wanted to pull over we got a taxi

who got lost, you know, I guess the takeaway for me is like triple, triple check even every second

because even our taxi in Hong Kong I had lived in Hong Kong so I knew that he was taking a weird way and I knew we had to cross the water And I was like wait and I was like we got to go there

And so I was like, I had to reiterate to him a few times and God's back on the right track

So like you just, you just don't know. So you kind of have to just roll with the punches. Yeah

You can't control and then just meet up the time where you can. It was that that was the lesson we learned early on was that there's going

to be more than just still to this race and we're just gonna have to roll with the punches and that's

okay i'm glad we learned that lesson early on and also to our advantage we got to know the teams at

the back of the pack the middle of the pack the front of the pack which was great socially because

there is a social game no matter what anybody wants to say there is a social game aspect to this

um and so i think it really kind of helped us like we were so serious in the beginning it helped us

take a step back and be like let's start having fun because that's what we're here to do yeah we

can't keep struggling forever and we that's out of our control so what's in our control is let's

have a little fun and that helps well i mean what i think is so interesting is that we see in the

first couple legs how you talk about kind of having different temperaments in a manner of

speaking i mean brett you say that you like to keep things light mark you quite literally say

sometimes you like to be angry just to be angry and look this is a season where certainly we saw

a conflict amongst a lot of other teams did you guys find that there was a fair amount of conflict

on during your 10 legs in the race or to your point when you sort of let go of that sense of

like we can only control what we can control you guys ended up getting on the same page despite

how different you would approach these tasks i think honestly almost going home on the second

leg having that experience with ernest and the bridget and the drums really taught us very early

on how special this experience was and we weren't going to waste it arguing with each other so i

think that really put it in perspective very early on we did have some disagreements first

absolutely um but um but at the end of the day we learned because of that bad luck early on that

this experience was way too big for us to be wasting time on that yeah so like this was a

dream we wanted to have as much fun like yeah we want to win i mean even when we were in france and

we were at the back of the pack brett like ran across the street and then we weren't supposed to

go and then I was like you can't go and he was like I'm going and I was like we're supposed to have fun today so like we were mad we were like trying to yell at each other to have fun so yeah

well even even if the drama wasn't contained within I do want to call out one moment where

maybe you brought the drama in a different way with this u-turn vote where you guys call out

Scott and Laurie being like hey we're not buying the act of you saying uh the slogging is you know

making us a team that you can sort of underestimate. Talk to me about that, because you talk about that social game

Was there any worry that you were putting yourself very much out there

that the shot could be returned back to you? I don't think so, because I think the map the day before that

you saw a little bit of what went down. And the teams, everyone was on the same page

On those back teams, everyone had a very similar... they saw they saw what we saw and we weren't the ones who were like orchestrating this everyone was

on the same page so when it went down to the u-turn and they were like just saying oh we don't

do this we don't do that we just happened to be the first in line and i happened to not be able

to keep my mouth shut yeah that's all that happened lovingly so every single team had the exact same

thought i had in fact bill thanked me on the mat for bringing it up he was like i'm so thankful

that you brought it up because they can keep pretending that they not Every other team was like I so glad you spoke up I so glad you spoke up Because at the end of the day and I said it very clearly on that day and there footage I said we are all like we all like you including

ourselves. No one is saying we have an inauthentic relationship with you. It's authentic. However

the expectation that we won't play against you in return is a social game. And that's not something

I'm going to be manipulated or guilted into not doing because we're here to play a game

So to say that we're not friends or anything is taking it to another level that was never

a part of the game. So everyone saw it where they said they're going to guilt trip

Jonathan and Anna, they said it was personal to them, but then they also said they were

guilt tripping it. So for me, like it's not adding up. And that's why I said what I said

It's not adding up. It didn't feel like you were doing that because it was like everyone saw

Exactly. Every team had said, everything I said out loud, every team had already said to each other

So it did not feel like we were sticking our neck out. It felt like we were speaking what everybody else was already talking about

Well, the last thing I want to ask is, look, I would be remiss not to bring up the fact that I know Mark in particular

this was not the first time we saw you on reality TV on our screens before

and so look drag race is under the cbs viacom umbrella let's let's open things up a little bit

if you could pick a team of two queens that you would want to see on the amazing race either ones

that you've worked with or others who would it be and why i feel like i i feel like the the go-to

answer is obviously bobby monade yeah because they are an absolute riot they're two completely

different personalities enough to think they can do every challenge right and one of them thinks

they know everything and yeah giving very bright and i so that that's like my first go-to answer

plus the fashion i don't know however if i were to pick um some other personalities

that i think would be really fun i mean vanjie would be an absolute terror and and that would

make for great tv and i have to be honest derrick berry is a good time derrick berry i i derrick

Barry's a good type now would they be good at the race that's a completely different doesn't matter

listen even if they don't make it out of the airport it'll be a great half episode we'll get

them absolutely yeah that's what I would say it was a great 10 episodes that we got out of you

guys again like uh it was so much fun to watch you kind of have everything click and have you

really again just like absolutely power through once you sort of found your own in this race and

And unfortunately goes to show that, like, to your point, the one really bad leg you had ended up being the last

But I think it speaks to, again, the formidable aspects of your spirit that especially after those initial kind of trials and tribulations

despite how intense that situation was that we saw across the board in France, you guys went out with your head held high

And I know that obviously there was a lot riding on this for the two of you and your future

But I think regardless, it's your future is incredibly bright because of, you know, the love and clear passion you have for each other and for your relationship, which was shown over the course of this beautiful journey you had together

Thank you. Thank you so, so much. We love the race. And yeah, we love the race and we love each other. So thank you so much

Well, the pleasure was all mine. Thank you both so much for not only everything you brought to the screen, but for bringing it to me today as well. This was an absolute pleasure. Seriously, I wish you guys nothing but the best. Thank you

Thank you so much. It was wonderful to meet you. You as well. Have a great day

You too. Bye-bye