Big Brother’s Derek and Claire Did a ‘Whole Amazing Race Bootcamp’ Before Competing on the Show: ‘I Made a Very Long Prep List’

usmagazine.com:

Preparation is key. Big Brother 23 alums Derek Xiao and Claire Rehfuss, who Us Weekly exclusively revealed were dating a few months after their stint on the CBS reality series last summer, were serious about preparing before they headed off to compete on The Amazing Race.Even though the product manager, 24, and the AI engineer, 25, were both fan favorites on their first reality competition show, they say they “lost it” and “were in tears” when they actually got cast for the Phil Keoghan-hosted race around the world.“Her parents gave us, like, a whole Amazing Race bootcamp,” Derek exclusively tells Us Weekly about what they did to prep. “They taught us how to drive stick shift.

We had a rented car. They would literally blindfold us, put us in the back of their truck, drive us off to a random location, and then give us a map and be like, ‘OK, now you guys need to make your way back home.’”Derek had been chosen to compete on The Challenge: USA, a CBS spinoff of the long-running MTV series, so he wasn’t sure he could do both.

Ultimately, he did – but that cut into their prep time for the race.“I had such ambitious glance,” he explains. “I am a very studious person so The Amazing Race, this is a game that almost is fully in your hands.

Other than, like, a taxi every now and then, you can do tangible things to study for it. There’s no house vote. There’s no politick-ing.