BULLRUN II (SPEED): Stress & The Hard Choices 
 

The subject of STRESS seems to be an underlying question that I have been asking myself for a couple of weeks now. In last weeks episode it also seemed like a river of stress was running through it's entire taping. I thought I would voice my thoughts about how the stress on teams in this rally might effect them going from pit stop to pit stop. I do not fully think that we can really image that stress. Most likely we won't ever understand it fully unless we are in their shoes doing something like this event for ourselves. Lets just think about it. O.K? 

In the beginning they were all holed up in those hotel rooms not knowing if they are going home or racing in the morning and that was after jumping through hoops just to get to this point. Then told only to wait for a call after spending a few hours with people who are judging you for a show that is as fun as Bullrun. I would think that alone would have been enough for me to break out with zits. Team Solstice told us early on that they just were bouncing around in the hotel waiting for that call.

Then you finally get that call and your told to you are starting in the morning. That really doesn't give you anytime to get your head around the fact that you are one of the lucky teams that have a chance at $200,000 in cash and prices because you are racing or doing photos right away. I bet it was like being in a whirlwind not knowing just what to do and being told to go here and do this or that. Team VW told us that a couple of the teams just had the cloths on their backs and weren't ready to head out cross-country. 

Then do you think that they could even sleep the first couple of nights? I know that after I have driven a couple hundred miles I can't just go to sleep. I have to watch tv or something to calm my nerves before I can rest. I can only think that the adrenaline is fading and nerves are getting a little frayed as the race progresses.

Now if that was not enough to make you have a full on break down. Two of the team cars are now fully destroyed and at this point the teams are coming together to rebuild one of them and that is second car in as many days. That is yet another night of little to no sleep, it had to be taking a toll on every person there? These teams are not super human and they have worked hard, driven harder and been going at a hundred miles an hour for a few days, just to stay in the game. Something has to give? No person can take that much stress and not crack. Steve and Elvis in their Youtube blog for E5 told us about the White van drivers were even getting heated as they drove behind the teams. They didn't even have any skin in the game. That tells me that people are getting to a point in this trip that something is going to go NUKE.

These teams like each other, you can see it in the way they help one another with every problem that other teams have faced in the show. But don't misjudge them they are also looking to win the big prize as well. That makes any choice made all the more difficult. Doesn't that make sense? 

We got to see the teams having a little R&R back at the hotel they all were staying at. We hadn't seen any of the hotel breaks until this episode. I don't think we would have seen any of this but someone must have ran and got a camera just as the action was finishing up. I don't know if it was really the first time the teams got to relax, but they needed it. You can see that everyone that was in the lobby was a little tipsy and were trying to relax after the drama happened. If you put a person through what these Teams had been through in that short period of time. Something was going to pop and it did.

Still these teams didn't stop helping one another even after all that mess. That had to make the choice of just who to toss into the challenge that much harder for Bear and Matt. I can't believe that them standing in the spot didn't add to the already stressful choice they were asked to make. The stress must have been off the chart knowing that you were or might be sending a friend home that just helped you out of a sticky spot. You could tell that no one like the choice. We see the teams talking about it to try to reduce some of the stress that was in the air over it. After the challenge Brook broke down a little. I think he knew that it was just the stress of the whole event trying to get out and not them losing the challenge that night. I sure he felt a little better after a real nights rest.  You know for him and Wade the stress of the show was over and I bet he was happy for that on some level.

The other teams remaining are still under that specter and as the show continues I can bet you that it is going to get even more difficult going forward.  

Until we get a chance to run this event. We will not ever understand fully the amount of pressure and stress that every little decision made has on a teams mindset. We can see some cracks in the friendships as things are said that aren't meant. So before we judge them for what we see on TV. We must think about their place at that point in the race. They are people that want to win and are making a hard choice to help them along knowing it will hurt another team that they might like. That is racing and every team knows it.

They all seem to like one another (excluding EVO), so they can't be to upset at those stressful choices made along that Bullrun road. They each knew it was a game and they were all there to win. Each knowing that at some point along the way they had to make a hard choice themselves.  

AARON & MISTER HAPPY!