Pack your bags, because The Amazing Race is back for its 30th season! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the team most recently eliminated from the race.

A calm mind. Steady hands. A body ready for endurance. Qualities that exist in both the best Indy Car drivers and Amazing Race contestants. Alex Rossi and Conor Daly were hoping to use that crossover area to their advantage when they competed on the show’s 30th season. And though they started out with a few mistakes, they were able to shift gears and surge ahead in the power rankings. The most recent winner of the Indy 500, Alex was hoping that he and Conor could have another trophy to put on their shared mantle. But right when they had the checkered flag in sight, the penultimate leg in Hong Kong promptly slammed the brakes on those prospects, making them the final team to be eliminated.

The friends started the race with one goal: get the win and the prize money that could get Conor the couch crasher to move out of Alex’s house (a fact that host Phil Keoghan certainly did not let go of in their time on the race). Being instructed to drive themselves, they quickly got to the first Roadblock in a good position. But perhaps Conor was so used to speeding along at a breakneck pace that he didn’t realize the order he was supposed to arrange the key phrase. They finished the first leg in fifth place, a position they retained during the second leg, getting lost in the streets of Belgium but dominating the handcart race in the first ever Amazing Race Head-to-Head. Their troubles briefly continued in Morocco when they struggled with the meticulous task of stacking fish, but Conor’s redeeming performance in the Roadblock put them in second. They had a similar trajectory in Saint-Tropez, as Alex’s misinterpretation of the Roadblock directions left a frustrated Conor waiting on shore, but their surprising skills at pétanque in the Head-to-Head made first place a sure thing. And the pattern repeated once more as they made their way through France; Conor’s lack of attention to detail came back when he missed the wing nuts on his trebuchet and left the Roadblock in last place, but their navigation around the Les Baux province had them flying back towards the middle of the pack. Looking ahead, the boys hoped that their overall race would mimic the past few legs they had run: middling in the first half, but strong in the second.

Those hopes came to fruition for Alex and Conor, and perhaps it involved getting out of Europe. Traveling to Zimbabwe, the first ever Partner Swap mashed them up with Lucas Bocanegra and Brittany Austin, though Conor and Lucas got stuck in the mud, Brittany and Alex were able to serve as the proverbial winch to get them into a combined first place. The teams were then reunited and immediately sent into the city of Harare, and faced a major opportunity in being the first to reach the double U-Turn. Up to this point, the boys had gotten close to the duos of Cody Nickson and Jessica Graf and Kristi Leskinen and Jen Hudak, and the troika had a loose agreement to look after each other. As a result, when Team Ocean Rescue chose to U-Turn Team Big Brother, partially due to their ongoing rivalry, they decided to give their friends a brother-in-arms by using their U-Turn power on Henry Zhang and Evan Lynyak. As a cherry on top, Alex was able to successfully get through his Achilles heel of a singing task, which made the list of his top three accomplishments. Perhaps he was a bit hasty with the ranking, though, as they ended up going on to rack up back-to-back wins due to Alex’s experience in Bahrain, as well as their new aptitudes in frog catching and scorpion eating. On a winning streak and with their three-team group still intact, the guys’ confidence was shining as bright as the neon signs of Hong Kong as they touched down in the city. But after they got their picture taken atop Victoria Peak, their smiles quickly turned to grimaces, as their attempt to tie up 50 hairy crabs made them very crabby. They decided to switch Detours and faced another frustration as they tried to dish out food to several diners after taking their orders in Cantonese, but they were able to push through the language barrier and leave second. Alex was smashing in his smashing at the Roadblock, but the two found themselves with a personal ball and chain. The next clue was inside a briefcase handcuffed to Conor’s wrist, and the combination was taken from the leg numbers of several symbols in the raucous Lan Kwai Fong neighborhood. The task was a dangerous cocktail of mounting frustration, sensory overload, and overall fatigue from almost a month of travel that ultimately proved to be lethal. When they failed to interpret the sign of the Washington Square Park arch, they got passed by all of the other teams. They were still trying to navigate Lan Kwai Fong when Phil rounded the corner, sending them out of the race with briefcase and hat in hand.

After the finale, Alex and Conor spoke with me about why they chose each other as partners, how their ability to move on from arguments benefited their game, and what they hope they get to do with Phil next.

Inquiring minds need to know: Conor, what’s the living situation like post-race?

Conor Daly: Well, technically our deal was up in October, which is when we were filming. (Laughs.) But yeah, it was my plan when we got back to have my own spot. I do have my own place now. So, success, I guess!

Does Phil know about this new arrangement, considering how much he ribbed you throughout the race about you sleeping on Alex’s couch?

Conor: Maybe I’ve got to slide into his DMs or something. I want to hang out with Phil again at some point. I have no way to contact him yet, so I’m going to try to get a hold of him at some point. Maybe we can have a cold beverage and discuss all these jokes. (Laughs.)

Well, let’s get into the race itself, and we’ll start with your finish. I noticed that when Phil eliminated you, Conor seemed frustrated with the situation, while Alex looked calm and almost at peace. Are those temperments representative of your different personalities?

Alex Rossi: I think that’s just who Conor and I are. Conor’s the funny and emotional one; he shows his emotions. I’m there to do a job, and I don’t change my temperament a whole lot. Conor’s a pretty fierce competitor, and he wanted badly to win it. Obviously, we were both disappointed, but I’d probably given up on it a little before he had with the briefcases. So I probably had a little more time to process it. At the same time, I think we both understand and appreciate in hindsight that we won as many legs as anyone else and we won two out of the three past legs, which is pretty cool.

In watching your final leg, it looked like frustrations were mounting, especially around the Detour. Was it a matter of all the fatigue adding up compounded with being so close to the end?

Conor: Well, I think it’s also the fact that it was a very very long travel day. We were starting the leg very late at night. By the time we finished, it was 3:30 in the morning. The racing world hasn’t been great to me, so the whole time, I didn’t know what was happening at home. I hadn’t been separated from my workplace, and my contract was up in the middle of October, and I didn’t know what was happening, whether my team had taken my contract or not. So I had that going on in my head the whole time. Going out and losing the race like that, which obviously sucks, and knowing the fact that I’d be going home to news in the next day or so, it was a tough situation. Still a good experience, but you just want to win. You always want to win, so that’s tough.

Talk to me about the work that came with that combination task. How long were you guys there, even after the other teams left?

Alex: Probably a good 2-3 hours. We were there for a long time. We even were at the point where we used our leg money to buy drinks, like water and a Gatorade. We couldn’t figure it out. We found all of the hidden signs that we were looking for in the first 20 minutes and then we sat there for two and a half hours trying to figure it out. We didn’t understand it, even when Phil told us the answer. It wasn’t going to happen. We tried to guess what we could.

Conor: You know the funny part about that? We actually asked them to open our briefcase. We were like, “You guys open this briefcase because we truly believe that it didn’t open.” And they tried for ten minutes, and Phil was putting all these numbers in. Then it finally worked, and I said, “Oh, ok. Whatever.” It was just so frustrating.

Alex: That is a good point. The first time he put it in, it certainly didn’t work.

The elements were just working against that briefcase, it seems! I want to backtrack to before the race even started. Conor, I know you’re a big fan of the show, but what drew you guys to the race and each other as partners?

Conor: Alex and I have lived together all during last year, and I’ve known Alex for a long time. He’s a champion of the hundredth running of the Indy 500 and had a big network behind him. I think Indy Car loves to put their drivers out into different markets and different environments. I wasn’t necessarily the first choice to be on the team with Alex. But I was super passionate about trying to get in there. And sure enough, it ended up being him and me. It was cool to be able to do that because it’s a show that I actually watch. I’ve always learned to put my personality out on a TV platform. I’ve had friends and [others] tell me I should have my own TV show for a long time. And it turned out I guess people like seeing me be myself on the TV screen.

I know I’ve personally advocated for you to have a wildlife show where you to milk any animal you can.

Alex: (Laughs.)

Conor: (Laughs.) That could be interesting.

Alex, you spoke before about how you guys have different temperaments. I know you spoke at one point on the race about how, when you argue, you’re easy to forgive and forget because the nature of your job is to look ahead to the next lap. Do you feel that was essential to your success in the race?

Alex: Very, very essential. I couldn’t imagine doing that with a loved one. Hats off to Brittany and Lucas for coming out of that thing actually engaged, in a better position than where they started. It’s hard for anyone because you’re thrown in these scenarios in a competitive environment where you have no idea what’s going on. There’s going to be differences in opinion on how to solve problems. Like you alluded to, we’re racing drivers, and in a race, there are a lot of people that piss you off. But that doesn’t mean that you stop and complain about it, then re-join the race. You just sort of process it in your head and move on. The other thing is, we’re two dudes. So it’s not like there were hurt feelings. We could pretty much say whatever we wanted to each other for five minutes, and then the next ten minutes you’re over it. You’re trying to win a race and a million dollars, and the rest of it is pretty much secondary.

I want to move away from you as a team and talk about your relationship with other teams. Near the end of the race, we saw this group build out between you, Team Big Brother, and Team Extreme. What drew you to those two teams in particular?

Conor: Certainly with Kristi and Jen, I’ve watched the X Games all my life. I thought it was cool and so awesome that they were there. We weren’t allowed to talk to each other until the race is going. At the airport in Iceland, the first thing Kristi said to Alex is that she lives next to his dad. All of a sudden, we were saying, “That’s kind of funny. What a small world!” We just got along with them super well. I had never watched Big Brother, so I didn’t know what they were, who they were, or what was going on. All I knew was that in New York, there was about a couple of thousand people there screaming about them, so I was like, “Alright! Must be some superstars.” It turns out they were super cool. Cody was definitely a bro, and Jess was awesome as well. We just all got along, made each other laugh, and push each other to the limit.

Talk to me about the decision you made to U-Turn Team Yale. What was your intent behind it?

Alex: We were trying to look after Cody and Jess. We had the opportunity to give them a free pass, so we took that. Not that it mattered anyway, because Yale still ended up beating two other teams. But I think if we had shown up first, we wouldn’t have U-Turned anyone. It wasn’t like we were trying to put Yale out intentionally, we were just looking out for one of our friends. So that was solely the motivation for it.

Would you call that grouping an “alliance,” or is it more of a loose deal that you would look out for each other?

Conor: At that point in Zimbabwe, there aren’t many teams left. It was more that we were in the moment. If we would have gotten there first, no way we would have used it. Because what’s the point? If you get there first, you just keep on trucking. But once we had seen [Ocean Rescue U-Turn Big Brother], we thought, “Well, we might as well make a decision here that could make things interesting for Big Brother and hopefully put them in a decent position.” In the end, it didn’t matter. It didn’t seem like the U-Turn or Speed Bumps hurt anyone. Other than Team Well-Strung; that was a shame because there was only one U-Turn and they were really good. It was just one of those things that you’ve got to run and gun and make moves when you can.

Alex, I saw in a secret scene on YouTube that you said the race had taught you “the value of taking a deep breath.” Can you elaborate on that?

Alex: It’s pretty simple. Of all the things that we made mistakes on, the number one problem that continually bit us in the butt was reading things too quickly and assuming we knew what we needed to do. I think [for] all of the tasks up until we got to Hong Kong and the briefcase, we had the ability to accomplish them as well, if not better, than everybody else. But we were our own worst enemy in terms of not looking at all the information, taking a step back, and analyzing the situation as a whole. I think that was a big personal and life lesson that I was able to pull out of it and hopefully be able to apply to my profession as well.

Would you add learning that lesson to your top accomplishments in life, along with completing a singing challenge successfully?

Alex: (Laughs.) Sure. I mean, I think my biggest accomplishment was eating scorpions and frogs. But I’ll let the viewers decide.

You guys have been living and working together for quite some time. Did you learn anything new about each other in your time on the race together?

Conor: I actually didn’t know Alex was that bad at singing at pronunciation of foreign languages. (Laughs.) But on the good side, Alex is extremely good at almost everything, if not everything. I think that’s why he’s Indy 500 champion; that’s why he’s competing every week at the front of the Indy Car series. That’s why he was the last American driver to make it to Formula One; that’s huge. I just think it was cool to be able to do the race with someone who you know you can lean on if you weren’t quite as skilled at doing something.

Alex: Conor surprised me a lot. I’ll be honest with you, and I told him this, I was concerned about how it was going to work and how we were going to do. The first leg in Iceland in the Roadblock was his lowest point. He struggled with that, and he made that known. But then his ability to bounce back from it. In a lot of instances, he carried the team. He was better than me in quite a few things and kind of bailed me out. I think we played well off of each other. Yeah, we got into arguments, [but] who didn’t? That’s human nature. We came out of it friends; we still see each other a lot. I think it was a positive experience for both of us. The only negative is that we took four weeks out of our lives and didn’t win a million dollars. But hey, so did nine other teams.