LITTLE ROCK — Restaurant manager Brooke Bettoney of Bryant was at work late last year when her cell phone rang showing a number she didn't recognize. Though prone to ignore such calls, she decided to take this one - and found it to be the beginning of a pretty wild ride, one that took her over thousands of miles and landed her and friend Amanda Ensminger of Little Rock in front of TV audiences worldwide competing for a chance to win $200,000.
The call was from a producer of reality race show Bullrun, which premiered last week and airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. on Speed TV. Bettoney had tried out for the first season of the show, which aired in 2007 on Spike TV, but when she wasn't chosen didn't give it much thought. The show was coming back, the voice on the line said. We're starting season two and want to know if you're interested. Immediately Bettoney, 23, fired off a text message to her friend and fellow car junkie Ensminger, 21, a junior at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway studying physical therapy.
"I sent Amanda a text saying, 'Long story short, can you take off the month of December to do a TV show?' Her reply was 'Sure.'"
They made an audition tape, sent it in, and shortly Bettoney got the call, again at work, that they'd made it to the final round of casting. That Monday they told her they'd need to come the next day to ship her car, a 2008 Lexus IS250, out to California. By Thursday the two girls were flying out to meet with producers. While confined to their hotel room in Los Angeles that Sunday night they got word they'd made the show. Filming began the next day.
And with that, the girls were essentially cut off from the outside world, having to surrender their cell phones, cameras and laptops. The way the Bullrun competition works, 12 teams consisting of a driver and a navigator take their own cars, whether a Ferrari or a Volkswagen minibus, from one checkpoint to the next on routes of their own choosing, with no GPS allowed. The last two teams to arrive at each destination - along with a third chosen by the first team to arrive - face an elimination challenge. But while it's a race, teams have to obey the rules of the road. Speeding tickets earn stiff penalties and an arrest leads to immediate disqualification. After each day of driving - long days with only the camera in the car for company and not even a radio playing, since it would ruin the footage - the competitors spend the night together in the same hotel, and the next day together filming challenges.
"So these 60 people [including cast and crew] become a family for a month, and everyone got along really well, for the most part," Bettoney said. "As soon as the day was done, everyone was pretty good about separating [themselves from the competition], which made it a lot easier on everyone."
According to the rules, each car must arrive under its own power or that of its team members. So being on the show takes a little under-the-hood know-how in case of a breakdown. For Bettoney and Ensminger, that was no big deal. At least not anymore.
Originally from Baton Rouge, Bettoney came to Arkansas at 14 and knew nothing about cars even at 16, when she confesses to being teased because she couldn't even put gas in one.
"That made me want to know as much as possible about cars," she said.
With her brother becoming a car buff and her dad getting into it to as well, Bettoney eventually built a single turbo 3000GT herself and raced on the local scene for two years. At 21 though, she found she no longer had the time, so she parted out and sold the car, but still kept a subscription to Motor Trend.
Ensminger, who grew up in Little Rock, said with two brothers, she's been around guys and by extension around cars her whole life. She started going to races at 14, around the same time Bettoney was learning to fill up her first car. Eventually running in the same circles, the two knew of each other long before they met. Turns out one of their mutual friends was a guy they were both dating ... at the same time.
"We kicked him out and became friends," Bettoney explains.
Ensminger said she knew Bettoney had tried out for season one of Bullrun, but when the text came asking her if she could put her life on hold, including getting permission to postpone all her finals until she got back, it was "completely out of the blue." But appealing nonetheless, and not using reality TV to become an overnight star.
"Just the experience as a whole [appealed to me]," Ensminger said. "It wasn't really about promoting ourselves. We didn't really care about being on camera. It was just fun for us."
Bettoney agreed.
"When the opportunity came, it was just that, an opportunity. It was pretty much just an adventure for me," she said. "If something comes out of it for me and Amanda, great, but I had fun regardless."