SHEPPARTON’S own Jobelle Collier and Rani Alegre of the Nanna Marce Filipino food truck have hit national television as two of the stars of Amazing Race Australia on Network 10.
The father/daughter duo are one of 14 teams to start the adventure reality game show that sees teams race around the country, following clues and completing competitive tasks with a $250,000 prize on the line.
Jobelle said that as a child, from the first time she watched The Amazing Race, she was hooked.
“I knew one day I wanted to do it, and with my dad, because he’s just so clever and so capable and does all these crazy things all the time, so it just had to be dad,” she said.
“We’d go to a theme park and my mum would be chasing after us saying ‘Hey, don’t go on that!’ But my dad would be saying ‘Let’s go!’
For Rani, the application to be on the show came more as a surprise.
“I think it was the last day of submission, and Jobelle came out with a camera and said ‘Hey dad, let’s make a submission for the Amazing Race!'” he said.
“I said if I can just make it onto the show, I can consider myself a lucky guy already, because I know it’s a really hard show to get through to.”
Jobelle said life in Shepparton had prepared her for the challenges thrown at her and her dad during the competition.
“I think the diversity in Shepp has prepared us for lots of things. Shepparton is like a mini-Australia, right?” she said.
“You get the taste of the culture, the country, and we are so used to driving for hours, so that every time we got a clue, saying ‘You guys are driving for 1.5 hours, make sure you split up the driving’, we were like, ‘1.5 hours, that’s a cute drive!’ That definitely came in handy for sure.”
Both Jobelle and Rani said the lure of the prize money sat at the back of their minds during the race. For Rani, the prospect of winning that sort of cash would mean a donation to a charity and a deposit in the bank. For Jobelle, a family holiday.
Jobelle, a mother of two young children, prepared for her time away by pre-recording herself reading bedtimes to her kids, and ordering gifts to be sent home at pre-arranged times.
“I didn’t hear from them, but it didn’t mean they didn’t hear from me,” she said.
“It was a strategy to make sure they didn’t miss me too much.”
In terms of strategy on the show, Rani said it was simple: Be the tortoises.
“Our team thrived by being tortoises – being calculated and strategic and not rushing into things,” he said.
Jobelle said, “My dad and I are obsessed with efficiency, and we’re not afraid if we fall behind a little bit because we can watch other people and watch their mistakes.”
Jobelle and Rani were joined by family, friends, and dozens of others who gathered at Shepparton’s Terminus Hotel on Monday night to watch the premier of this year’s show.
“I hope we can make Shepparton proud. We’re not just representing our family, but the whole town,” she said.
