Good Luck Scott! Amazing Race New Season Opens With Twist. Strangers Partner Up To Win $1M

THE AMAZING RACE launches into its 29^th season this Thursday, Mar. 30 10/9c on CBS. The multi-Emmy Award-winning reality series will have 11 teams embarking on a trek around the world. If you haven’t seen the show (it’s been running and traveling strong since September of 2001), At every destination, each team must compete in a series of challenges, some mental and some physical, and only when the tasks are completed, will they learn of their next location. The teams that are the farthest behind will gradually be eliminated as the contest progresses, with the first team to arrive at the final destination winning THE AMAZING RACE and the $1 million prize.

We learned that one of the contestants is a family member and he’s very excited about how this season plays out. Here’s a sneak peek at 33-year-old recruiting manager Scott Flanary talking about what makes him adventurous, why he's nervous about the stranger pick, and if he'd be open to starting a relationship while on the Race. Oh! Romance!?!

We were able to shoot some emails back and forth with Scott to find out about how this season went for him. One of his latest emails read:

This is a dream come true and I went in with my game face on from minute one. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they edit everything together. There is certainly a LOT to cover over the course of the Race. Can’t wait to reveal my partner!

The Start Line this year was honestly the first time we could speak to each other. We had to rely totally on non-verbal first impressions to decide whether we might work well with each person on a literal race around the world. What’s challenging is even though you can assess body language, attitude, demeanor, and some other physically-based characteristics, those attributes don't paint the full picture of a person. I can see this season as a metaphor for what’s going on in the United States today. There’s still a lot of distrust and bigotry that can be based solely on few noticed/physical characteristics, yet there is so much more to a person if we took the time to get to know them. This person could be your friend. This person could be the “one.”

After getting to know all of the cast, I know I would have worked well with a lot of those people who I initially thought I’d never pick at the Start Line. My first impression of them was way off base and it goes to show that we aren’t always right in what we think about a person when we have limited interaction with them. We should be a little more empathetic from the beginning.

This sounds kind of heavy now that I’m typing it out, but hopefully it gives you an idea of what I’m trying to say. Does that make sense? I couldn’t shake this idea even on the Race, about how off I was on some people and how grateful I am to be in their lives now.

We’d say good luck Scott on the race, but as you know, the race is over at this time. So should we say good luck with the editing! We’re looking forward to catching up with him after the first episode airs this Thursday at 10/9c on CBS