‘Amazing Race 14′: a chat with stuntmen Mark and Mike

Though they are only 4 feet, 9 inches tall, the stuntmen-brother team of Mark, 48, and Mike, 51, Munoz stood tall last night as they were eliminated in the ninth round of “The Amazing Race 14.”

The brothers had incurred penalties two weeks in a row and were docked four hours last week for giving out personal items to taxi drivers in Bangkok, Thailand, when they ran out of money.

Though they were hours behind the four remaining teams Sunday evening, Mark and Mike had a blast performing their stunts, including a fun Speed Bump in which they had to wash and dry the hair of two women in Guilin, China.

The two talked about their experience on the show the morning after their elimination episode aired.

Q: Sorry you guys were eliminated last night.

Mike: It was such a wonderful experience in the first place, just to be a part of this was an incredible experience. Looking at it as an experience, how can you not enjoy that?

Mark: Going around the world on a game like this, there were so many ups and downs, whether you do the right thing or the wrong thing or it’s just flat out luck …  By the time we got to India and actually won a leg before being disqualified, I got to the point “I’ve gotten this far, how much better can it get?” After that it was almost like a bonus.

Q: Were you working so hard on the race that you disobeyed the rules twice in a row?

Mark: As far as giving personal items away, it was a heat of the moment, kind of a passionate thing. We are in a foreign country, [the cabbie] is working his butt off to get us around the country and we didn’t have enough money. There were five teams left and it was like doing whatever we had to do to survive. And we felt really good after giving the stuff away because he was smiling like he hit the lottery.

Mike: For me it was just about doing the right thing and not taking advantage of people.

Q: What did you think when Jaime and Cara called you the “tweedles”?

Mike: I thought it was cute. I didn’t think badly of it at all because Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum I think are fun little characters.

Q: Did you have a favorite country?

Mark: I had a couple of favorites. I thought the scenery in Switzerland and Austria was amazing. I’m a skier and I love mountains. The train ride through the Swiss Alps was just fabulous and then the people in India were really amazing.

Mike: For myself, that train ride through the Alps was incredible.

– Susan King, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photos: Mark and Mike (top); Mark feeds a cormorant in the ninth lap of "The Amazing Race 14"; CBS]

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 20, 2009 at 2:32 pm by Mary Forgione and is filed under Amazing Race, Asia, China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.