The Amazing Race: Thrill ride

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I don’t know about you, but Sunday nights just got a little less exciting now that Mel and Mike White are no longer on “The Amazing Race.”

The father/son duo’s journey came to an end during the series’ seventh episode, which aired on Sunday and had them racing through Phuket, Thailand.

The long-running CBS series, now in its 14th season, follows teams of two as they race around the world, competing in various challenges along the way.

Mel, a gay rights activist who lives in Lynchburg, and Mike, an actor/director/screenwriter who lives in California, were one of 11 teams to compete this season, which included stops in Germany, Romania, India and even Transylvania.

It was a cab driver snafu that ultimately sealed their fate, but don’t feel too sorry for the pair. After talking to them on Monday, I think I’m taking their ouster harder than they are.

Mel said he wishes they’d gone farther, but he has no regrets.

“It was just too much fun,” he said in a joint phone interview with his son.

“You know, you think, ‘If I’d done this or that.’ You have little regrets there that you’ve just gotta chase away. I’m not gonna think about that cab driver. There’s just too much fun to balance it out.”

When they arrived at the pit stop in Phuket, Thailand’s largest island, Mike said they were ready for whatever host Phil Keoghan told them.

“We were in a good place psychologically,” he said. “It would be fun to go all the way, but we felt like we really had had the ‘Amazing Race’ experience. I feel like some of the teams, early on, who got eliminated in the first couple days … that would have been sort of crushing because there’s such a build-up to going. To have the race last for two days just would’ve been depressing. But we were there two plus weeks.”

It was an eventful two weeks that saw Mel paragliding 6,000 feet over the Bavarian Alps and racing down a 3-mile Siberian bobsled course at 50 miles per hour, while his son bungee-jumped from a 70-story drop in Switzerland and ran through the streets of Siberia in only his underwear.

Together, they danced in the streets of India, helped a family of Transylvanian gypsies move and hung out with elephants at the Phuket Zoo.

“To describe ‘The Amazing Race’ is to not find adequate adjectives, and I’m very sincere about that,” Mel told me back in February. “It was thrilling every day. It was awe-evoking every day.”

For the most part, they stayed right in the middle of the pack, but do have two second-place finishes and one first to their name.

“We thought we were done so many times,” Mel said Monday. “We knew we were done a couple times. (Then), ‘We’re first? Huh?’”

It was the race’s fifth leg, in India, that proved to be the most stressful, when Mel struggled during a roadblock that required him to do some serious manual labor.

“When we finished in India … we talked to each other after that leg was over,” Mike said. “It was like, ‘You know what, Dad? We have nothing to be ashamed of at this point. Whatever happens, happens. Let’s enjoy it. We can’t lose now. It can only just be gravy.’

“So when we got behind in Phuket, we were determined to have fun, even if we ended up going out.”

And they did, joking and laughing through most of their tasks.

“We were just so lost most of that day that when we were actually anywhere where we knew we were supposed to be, we were in a good mood,” Mike said. “We were kind of reveling in the moment that we were at least on the path.”

That’s what was so endearing about the Whites. They were completely worth rooting for because they never got so wrapped up in the competition that they forgot who they were or how to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

They also never failed to crack me up, whether Mike was describing his father as “part Woody Allen, part Billy Graham and a splash of Judy Garland,” or Mel was saying that he could paraglide over the Bavarian Alps all day, “if I had a sandwich.”

Mel and Mike played the game with class and such wit, and I feel very confident in saying that even if Mel had no ties to Lynchburg, he and Mike would’ve been my favorite team.

Both men say they’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if asked back for an all-star edition.

CBS, the ball is in your court.

The Whites sound off

Mel on the first episode, which had them hauling four 50-pound cheese wheels down a steep slope in Interlaken, Switzerland:
“Michael was so generous and loving to me and pulled me up that hill. The cameras don’t give you any indication of how steep that hill was, and slippery. To start the race on that hill, I thought, ‘What are the next days going to be like?’”

Mike on keeping their composure in the race’s stressful situations:
“Well, it just doesn’t seem like losing your composure is necessarily going to get you done with the task any faster. You know what I mean? Sometimes when we were behind, it was actually more calming. It’s when you’re ahead and you feel like they’re all gaining on you that you’re like, ‘Ugh.’ But when you’re behind, you just sort of feel like you’re gonna give it your best and whatever will happen, happens.”

Mike, on running the race with his dad:
“My dad’s always been my friend, and he’s always been my dad, obviously. But it was just cool to be in the foxhole with him and strategize and kind of share the victories and share the tension of being behind. There was so much comedy, too. Even in the craziest moments, you just look around, and it’s just hilarious. It’s been fun to laugh about some of that stuff, even months later.”

Both on their most memorable moments:
Mike: “I just remember when we were dancing in India, we had already collected all the money that we needed, and my dad was just so into it. I was trying to bring him back. I was like, ‘Dad, we’ve got the money,’ and he was still dancing with the Indians and screaming for money. He was so into it, it was just funny to watch.”

Mel: “It’s gotta be paragliding over the Bavarian Alps. First of all, for the wind to change was so exhilarating. And then to see that beautiful countryside from that far up, that’s a moment you can’t forget.”