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'Amazing Race' trekker has St. Petersburg ties

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published September 27, 2005

CBS's The Amazing Race: Family Edition will feature a local rooting interest, but Tampa Bay area viewers might not even know it.

Among the family teams charging off across the globe in a race for a million dollars will be Linda Weaver of Ormond Beach and her three children, Rebecca, 19, Rachel, 16, and Rolly, 14.

But Weaver wasn't always a Weaver, and she wasn't always from Ormond Beach. Her mom, Lois Draper, said Weaver was raised in St. Petersburg and graduated from Northeast High School. Back then, she was Linda Scarbrough, one of Draper's four daughters, along with older sister Marcia and younger sisters Debbie and Marti.

Draper said her daughter is forbidden by CBS from doing interviews, but the network confirmed her identity.

In tonight's season premiere, airing at 9 on WTSP-Ch. 10, the Weaver family provides one of the most exciting moments, an encounter with an Amish buggy.

Weaver, 47, was widowed in February 2004 when her husband, Roy, was run over while picking up debris from the racetrack during an IPOWER Dash Series race at Daytona International Speedway, where he worked. She and her children discuss his death onscreen and share their religious faith; Weaver prays aloud twice during the first episode, asking for divine aid.

Draper said she isn't surprised to see her daughter on the show.

"She's such a vivacious type person, a daring type person, she'll try anything," Draper said. "I'm thrilled to death about it, but she can't tell me anything about how it comes out. Not a thing."

CBS cut short the preview episode mailed to critics in advance of tonight's airing, to keep the ending secret, but the Weavers were doing well leading up to the close.

Draper, who now lives in North Carolina, said her daughter moved from the area shortly after she was married 20 years ago.

* * *

One coincidence on Amazing Race highlights the continued underrepresentation of minorities on network reality shows. The only black family selected to compete is the Black family: Reggie and Kimberly Black, of Woodbridge, Va., and their sons, Kenneth and Austin. When any family is onscreen, producers identify them by posting the family name prominently in the lower right corner of the screen. So every time Reggie and Kimberly get screen time, viewers are reminded they're the "Black Family."

Ironic. Perhaps they could be identified as "the only black family."

[Last modified September 27, 2005, 14:43:43]