Rossi, Daly confirmed for new season of 'The Amazing Race' - MotorSportsTalk

Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly, nor their teams, nor the Verizon IndyCar Series, was allowed to officially reveal they’d be a team on the upcoming season of CBS reality travel competition “The Amazing Race” when it started hitting the Internet that they were a team. But Thursday, they got officially confirmed.

See the release from INDYCAR below for more details.

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Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly have been friends for years, and sometimes housemates since both joined the Verizon IndyCar Series full time in 2016. Now they’re something more: teammates for Season 30 of “The Amazing Race,” the popular, Emmy Award-winning reality competition show airing on CBS.

Rossi and Daly form “Team INDYCAR” for the competition that covers 10 countries, 21 cities and more than 29,000 miles in the quest to cross the finish line first and win $1 million. Team INDYCAR is among 11 two-person entries competing in the contest, which premieres at 8 p.m. ET Jan. 3 on CBS. The 30th season of “The Amazing Race” will conclude with a two-hour finale on Feb. 21.

“It was a pretty crazy experience, definitely different than what I thought it would be – but totally worth it,” Daly said. “It was fun to meet a lot of different people from different sports, different avenues of life. The cast really was one of the best parts of the show.”

Rossi admitted he hadn’t seen many previous seasons of “The Amazing Race” before undertaking the adventure. He was tested by it but enjoyed the experience.

“It was different in the sense that it’s not as fast-paced as it appears in the show,” Rossi said. “It was better than I expected because, in the gaps between legs of the race, they actually put you in a hotel and fed you and everything. So it wasn’t kind of extreme like a ‘Survivor’ type of process.

“The legs were really long in the sense that you spent a lot of time in airports, you slept on the floor a lot,” Rossi added. “It was an interesting experience. Again, I’m very happy that I had the opportunity to do it. It opened my eyes to what reality television is like. I think the fans will have a really good time watching it.”

Participation by Rossi, the 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner, and Daly had been speculated since they were seen at start of the competition earlier this fall at Washington Square Park in New York City. From there, the teams went to Iceland, where they were tasked with traversing a massive canyon high above the Geitargljufur River.

Daly’s knowledge of “The Amazing Race” may have helped the team during the competition. The 25-year-old from Indiana has been a fan of the show since high school.

“I thought it was really cool just because I obviously like racing, but it was a very different type of racing,” Daly said. “One episode that really caught me was when they went to the racetrack in Abu Dhabi and they were driving race cars there. I thought, ‘Oh, this is a show I need to do someday,’ but it never really seemed like a possibility. Sure enough, it became a reality.”

Daly said viewers will be impressed – and amused – by how he and Rossi work as teammates in high-pressure situations during the competition.

“I think Alex and I worked better than people might think as teammates,” Daly said. “I’m very excited to have people see what went on and how it all went because I think it was fun. I think people will enjoy seeing us love each other and hate each other.”

The two drivers have known each other since they competed in Europe together before reconnecting in the Verizon IndyCar Series. Rossi, 26, agreed they performed well together on the show, but not without a few friction-filled moments.

“Conor and I have known each other for a long time and we’re very close friends,” said Rossi, the native Californian now residing in Indianapolis. “We are able to push each other’s limits – kind of in a good way and a bad way. His sense of humor is pretty infectious, so we had a good time together.

“In the heat of the moment you have disagreements, but at the end I think we worked really well together and I was very happy that he ended up being my partner.”

Other teams competing in Season 30 include former NBA players Cedric Ceballos and Shawn Marion, competitive eaters Joey Chestnut and Tim Janus and X Games skiers Kristi Leskinen and Jen Hudak. Rossi expressed gratitude for officials at INDYCAR who paved the way for the racing duo to be on the show.

“It’s all because of INDYCAR, really,” Rossi said. “The series does a great job pushing out drivers and everything to get exposure to these casting people and to have these opportunities presented to us.”

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

Rossi, Daly confirmed for new season of ‘The Amazing Race’

Hunter Lawrence defends Haiden Deegan after controversial block pass at Detroit

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