ROB AND AMBER NOW SEEM POISED TO WIN “THE AMAZING RACE” AFTER SCHEMING “SURVIVOR”-STYLE
REALITY show lovebirds Boston Rob Mariano and his new bride, Amber Brkich, have crushed the competition on “The Amazing Race” playing by “Survivor” rules.
Bribing locals, trading on their 16 minutes of fame and even figuring out ways to insert “Survivor”-style scheming into what was once a cut-and-dry race around the world, “Survivor” alums Rob and Amber now seem poised to win on tonight’s two-hour finale on CBS (9 p.m./Ch. 2).
“Everybody’s goal on ‘The Race’ is to find a way to make it work for them within the confines of the rules,” the show’s host Phil Keoghan told The Post yesterday. “Every player has a different strategy and they came into it with the smarts of ‘Survivor,’ having played that – they came into ‘The Race’ with their own technique.”
Keoghan says the rules should make it impossible for individuals to sway the game as they do on “Survivor,” but that didn’t stop Rob and Amber from figuring out ways to manipulate the competition at times.
“I didn’t think I could do it, but I found a way to plot and scheme in ‘The Amazing Race,’ Mariano confided to cameras earlier this season after duping his competitors to sit out a challenge in which they all would have had to consume 4 lbs. of meat each.
“I was just blown away,” Keoghan says of Rob’s success on the task.
Among other things, the pair helped to charge up the show’s ratings. This season has been averaging about 12.5 million viewers, making it the Emmy-winning program’s best ever.
But Rob and Amber’s antics made enemies out of their competition early on, who were clearly appalled at the rough-and-tumble game they brought to the program.
In one instance, the couple blew by another team who had wrecked their Humvee in the African wilderness. Everyone else stopped to see if the driver and passengers were okay.
“There was no way we were stopping,” Mariano later explained. “It’s a competition.” One of the wreck’s victims furiously added at the time, “It’s so typical of their game.”
Other low-brow antics included slipping locals occasional bribes to withhold critical information from the competition, spreading misinformation and back-stabbing allies.
But the tactics have paid off, roping Rob and Amber at least four winning finishes in the race so far – prizes included three vacations (Europe, the Bahamas and Monte Carlo) and a home entertainment system.
To win the race tonight, Rob and Amber will have to beat Ron Young and Kelly McCorkle – a former POW and a beauty queen, whose relationship has been pushed to the edge on “Race” so far – and fan favorites Uchenna and Joyce Agu, a couple from Houston who both lost their jobs as a result of the Enron and WorldCom scandals.
Brkich won “Survivor All-Stars” last year, with Mariano taking second place. He later proposed to her on live TV during the show’s “reunion” edition. They were married last month in the Bahamas, which was turned into a special that will air later this month, also on CBS.
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