‘The Amazing Race’: Michael Naylor and Louie Stravato Said Their History as Police Officers Helped in the Competition
To be competitive on The Amazing Race, it helps to have a few advantages in your back pocket. It’s optimal if you’re already a world traveler who has experience with several languages. Keeping a tight grip on your passport and coming into the competition fit enough to literally run around the globe helps, too.
The CBS reality show is now in its 34th season, following the win of the husband-wife duo Penn and Kim Holderness in Season 33. The newest winning team attributed their success to Kim’s careful note-taking and the couple’s pre-show marriage therapy.
Contestants in earlier seasons have revealed what gave them the upper hand in the competition, too. While being able to read airport signs certainly comes in handy, some former racers including Michael Naylor and Louie Stravato say their normal day jobs helped them out, too.
Naylor and Stravato competed in ‘The Amazing Race’ Season 16
Naylor and Stravato competed as a team on The Amazing Race Season 16. The pair were both undercover police detectives from Providence, Rhode Island.
The two were friends when they joined the show, though they hadn’t worked as partners in any official capacity before. Naylor and Stravato finished three legs of the race in first place through parts of Germany and France, according to the show’s fan page.
However, the team struggled through parts of China due to the language barrier and had to deal with one of the show’s so-called “speed bumps” which slowed them down once the playing field was narrowed to four teams.
Despite a fairly strong performance throughout and some strategic gameplay, Naylor and Stravato finished the season in fourth place. Dan and Jordan Pious, the team of brothers who knocked the detectives out of the competition per their fan page, went on to win the race that season and claim the $1 million prize.
The detectives said their day jobs helped them gel and get advantages in the competition
Though Naylor and Stravato were admittedly not as versed in multiple languages as some of their competitors, their jobs as detectives prepared them well — and gave them a leg up in some instances, they said.
“It gave us a little bit of an edge and made up for not being able to speak the languages,” Naylor told People. “You didn’t see on TV but some police officers in France drove us to a location when we flashed our badges. If we told we were police officers, they bent over backwards to help.”
Stravato said the second nature of police officers to be aware of their surroundings helped in the competition, too. “And when it came down to searching for stuff, we were at ease and in our zone,” he said.
Ultimately, the pair said their teamwork, and practice being some else’s partner on the job, helped tremendously. “Cops from around the country have thanked us for showing what partners do,” Naylor said. “Louie and I were never partners — we’ve worked on the same cases — but we worked this like we’d been partners forever.”
Post-COVID-19, ‘The Amazing Race’ is now back to (almost) normal
It’s been several seasons since Naylor and Stravato made their way across the globe, with a pandemic in between. Season 33 was interrupted by Covid-19, which put the Holderness team and their competitors in a holding pattern until travel could resume. Now, CBS is back with a new Season 34, and things are mostly back to what viewers expect.
One change, however, is that the racers must undergo regular Covid testing to follow specific safety protocols for the competitors and crew. In fact, a positive Covid test is likely to throw a wrench into the competition for at least one team this season.
