Allison “Ally” Mello, 23, a Pitman High School graduate, and her partner Ashley Covert, 25, are among the five remaining teams with a chance to win $1 million on the hit CBS show, “The Amazing Race.”
Mello and Covert are also the only all-girl team left in the race after “The Baseball Wives” Nicky Getz and Kim De Jesus were eliminated this week.
This week’s leg was a continuation of last week’s non-elimination leg in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The leg began with the teams using viking coins they obtained during a past episode, set in Norway. Teams had to decipher the codes on the coins in order to gain access to Ford Explorers for transportation to their next challenge. After a delay in determining how to access the Explorers, Mello and Covert drove to the target sand dunes outside Abu Dhabi, in fifth place.
But while driving to the dunes, the baseball wives gained a slight advantage – leaving Mello and Covert in last place. Once at the dunes, teams had to drive a dune buggy to a location and pick up their next clue in the race.
Fortunately for Mello and Covert, the baseball wives got stuck and they zipped by with exclamations of joy.
“All those years at Pismo Dunes paid off,” said Mello.
The next clue was a detour challenge at Al Ain Oasis. Mello and Covert chose to participate in the “beauty contest” detour, in which they had to use a guide to select a camel with attractive facial features and body style. The girls quickly found an attractive camel and moved on to the next challenge, a roadblock at Wadi Adventure – the world’s largest man-made rapids.
Yet again fortune smiled on Mello and Covert when the baseball wives were “U-turned” before moving on to the Wadi Adventure by Tim Sweeney and Marie Mazzocchi. The U-turn all but sealed the baseball wives fate, as they had to return to the Al Ain Oasis and complete another detour challenge.
During the trip from Al Ain Oasis to Wadi Adventure Mello and Covert got lost, building drama for the episode.
Mello, who was driving, gave her partner a hard time for her navigational skills.
“I drive like I’m in a race for a million dollars, you gotta keep up,” said Mello.
Covert redeemed herself at the Wadi Adventure by successfully navigating the Class 4 rapids and grabbing three flags that were hanging over the rapids.
To add insult to injury, the baseball wives were met with a “speed bump” challenge once they finally reached Wadi Adventure because they finished last in last week’s non-elimination leg.
This was the final straw for the baseball wives as Mello and Covert pulled even further away and remained alive for another week. At the finish line they were met by the Afghanimals, Leo Temory and Jamal Zadran.
Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan commented on the apparent flirtatious relationship between the two teams and asked if something could be in the works between them. To which the Afghanimals replied “If we finish one-two I think we could work something out.”
The Afghanimals often refer to the Mello and Covert as their “race wives.” Perhaps this could be a foreshadow of the two team’s strategies in coming weeks.
Next week “The Amazing Race” travels to Indonesia.
