Pack your bags, because The Amazing Race is back! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the team most recently eliminated from the race.
Jackye Clayton and Lauren McKinney may have had the most emotional day out of all 14 teams on The Amazing Race 37. That’s saying a lot, considering the sisters seemed to fall out of the competition almost immediately upon landing in Hong Kong, through their elimination at the end of the episode. But through their limited time on the show, the two experienced some emotional (and literal) ups and downs. Jackye, with support, faced her fear of steps following a traumatizing injury. Lauren went through an exhausting climb in the Roadblock, putting her in tears when she got to the top. It was a representation of the passion the two had for the race, hoping to make their mother’s travel dreams a reality. And while rain poured down on them all day, the two served as a proverbial ray of sunshine through their last moment.
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Now, out of the race, Jackye and Lauren talk with Parade about a moment when they had nearly caught up to the other teams, their respective emotional moments in the premiere, and what they learned most about each other racing around Hong Kong together.
Related: Everything to Know About The Amazing Race 37
We saw at the end of the episode you partially wanted to go on The Amazing Race because your mother wasn’t able to travel after retirement due to her Parkinson’s. But talk to me about your fandom, and what made you decide to go from viewers to racers.
Lauren McKinney: So I’ve always been a fan of The Amazing Race. I wanted to go on The Amazing Race when my kids were in middle school. And now I’m a grandma with 11 grandkids. So that’s how long it is. And I always tell people, “Your dreams do not expire.” So it just happened to be that now was the time and the place. And our mother and father never missed an episode of The Amazing Race. So this was our show, and they loved it. They dreamed about it as well. It’s just that we got to live that dream.
So let’s go from the beginning to the end of your race. From our perspective, it seemed like, once you were in Hong Kong, you didn’t see any team for the rest of the leg. Was that the case? And how did you handle the leg knowing there was a very realistic chance you would be going?
Jackye Clayton: I felt almost closer to the beginning. We got the ferry, we saw the other teams, where we were in proximity. But when we knew the ferry and the structure, we knew everyone just got on that ferry, where they were before, and the way that it spaced, and it was like, “Okay.” But being fans of the race, we knew that there is always a possibility, right? But right from there, it was like, “We’re just going to embrace everything and do every challenge to the best of our ability. We can’t even think and go there. Let’s just run our race, whatever that means.”
Lauren: We missed that ferry by two minutes, by the way. By two minutes. It was on the dock, and we begged them to let us on. And they wouldn’t. [Laughs.]
Oh my god. If you had gotten on, that could have been an entirely different race!
Lauren: Yeah. But that’s how close the race is and how fast it moves. And I think you saw Jonathan and Ana talking about, “Oh, we got to get on this ferry,” because the schedule was so tight. So everybody was dealing with that. But that’s one thing that may not come across is we missed it by two minutes. It hurt, but we just kept running.
Yeah, just put one foot in front of the other. And on that note, let’s talk about the steps. Jackye, you clearly were facing a lot when you were going down them. Talk to me about what it was like when your body and mind are telling you to slow down and stop, in a race where you constantly have to be moving.
Jackye: So one of the things that is important to recognize, it had been raining all day. And these stairs are like marble stairs, and they’re wet. And so in my mind, in order to be careful–because we have to take stairs all the time, just in life–you hold on to a banister, and you make sure that you have sure footing. But you’re trying to race. And so part of the overwhelm is that fight in your head of going really fast and being really careful and being afraid, “I’m going to take that step. I’m going to have a panic attack. What am I supposed to do? I can’t hurry.” I felt unsafe, and so I almost froze, almost completely frozen in my head and still doing it.
So at that point, I just knew I had the support of Lauren. She’s always my big sister. At that moment, it changed. Because it was just about us. But it’s also hard when you’re looking at home. It’s a 12 hour flight. We just found out about it. We didn’t know where we’re going. So it was like everything’s going and we took the race as soon as we hit the airport when we got in Hong Kong. So there was no time to really think about it. And then it all became real in that moment when we turned around to go down the stairs. Going up the stairs, I didn’t even know there were stairs. Coming down the stairs, I was like, “We’re going down stairs, and they’re really wet. And where are we?! And what are those people doing there?!”
Lauren: [Laughs.] “This is a heck of a girls trip!”
Lauren, let’s talk about your own moment of emotionality. When you got to the top of that bamboo tower in the Roadblock, you were clearly overcome. Talk to me about how that came to be.
Lauren: I’m reflecting on this a lot, and it wasn’t just that isolated task. It was years of just dreaming about having that moment. That was the first time we actually had a challenge to reach a clue, and I knew I had to do it. And the more I would try, the harder the rain would come down, and the slipperier the bamboo got. We had no one around us; I only had my sister to cheer me on like that. The other teams had that energy of others around them. Iit was just me and this bamboo, let’s go. And it was difficult. I couldn’t get my footing up. I don’t know if you could see, but you couldn’t even put your foot flat to just climb up. We had to turn an angle, unless you had strength like Pops and Jeff.
But I just knew I was not leaving that challenge until I had that clue in my hand, period. I didn’t know how it was going to happen. So when I finally got to the top, it was such a release of just everything, everything. We were doing this for our parents. We were doing this for our kids. We were doing this for ourselves. We were living life. It was the first moment that the race really became so, so real for me. Just to touch that clue and we were still in it. The last thing I wanted was Phil coming out to the bamboo. That was not going to happen, period. I can’t even explain the feeling. Everything within me just came out.
Let’s say you had gotten onto the ferry and made up the time. Was it always going to be a foregone conclusion that you would pick “Sing” over “Dance”?
Lauren: When we got up to that box and we saw “Dance” and “Sing,” we were like, “We love to sing! That’s what we do, all day long.”
Jackye: But the strategy would have come in looking at what teams were already in place there. So that would have, I think, driven our decision one way or the other. So we got Sing, and it seemed to be the more difficult challenge after watching the show. All the Dance teams were going check, check, check, and there was still so many empty spots. We know the outcome. And I still was like, “We have a chance! We have a chance!” It felt like we were right back there, just running the race.
Speaking of those other teams, did you connect with any pairs in particular during your brief time on the race?
Jackye: We sat when we were taking pictures next to Carson and Jack. And so we just looked and we had the same watch. We really wanted to talk to them about the watch and everything else. And we never did.
Lauren: Scott and Lori, Ernest and Bridget. So already in the airport, it’s amazing how quickly you can bond with someone or pick up on something. Han and Holden were helping us out when we were exchanging money. We were like, “We’re collaborating.” And then Ernest and Bridget, we were working together. So it was like the social skills involved in that and just picking up on how to move. I think I could be wrong, but, I mean, we had connected with probably well over seven teams in that short period of time, just between getting our ticket and getting on the flight. So we felt like we could have worked with everybody, period. It didn’t matter who it was. And we all love them.
Yeah, I was just talking with Mark and Larry, and they told me to send their best!
Jackye: It’s so nice being able to bond with them. And even though, of course, we would love to have had a different outcome. But having them, they always will have that special place in our life, of us being able to do that together and really embrace some other people through that moment that have been there and done that.
Finally, what’s the biggest thing you learned about the other person racing around the world together?
Jackye: I hope you have a tissue. It’s gonna be good. But for me, one of the things that, when my mom passed away, someone asked me what my biggest fear was. My biggest fear was that no one was going to love me like that again in my life. And then from going through this stuff, I was like, “Oh, you do you love me like that.” It wasn’t a question, but it just solidified. Because I knew, no matter what, even if it’s stairs and it’s for a million dollars, she loved me more than what was going on. And that was what I learned.
Lauren: I mean, again, she’s my baby sister. We’re 10 years apart. And I told her from the minute they told my mom and dad, “It’s a girl,” I have been a fan. She’s just so genius and so incredible. And I’m just always so amazed at how she just navigates through life despite any challenges or internal struggles I have. I’m so enamored with that and the way that she just still manages to push through and navigate. And I thought if I was a fan at the beginning of this, I am just off the charts. You are just so incredible. And she uses that to help empower other women and other people, period, daily, every day in her life. And I just have so much respect for you. I have so much respect for my sister. She is so much stronger and so much wiser than I ever knew.
Related: ‘The Amazing Race 37’s Mark Crawford and Larry Graham Tricked the Other Teams Into Believing They Were Celebrities (Exclusive)
