Downey couple reach top 5 in CBS's "The Amazing Race"

Aubrey Ares and David Hernandez are currently competing for $1 million on CBS’s The Amazing Race. (Photo by Alex Dominguez)

DOWNEY - A Downey couple is hopefully closing in on the $1 million-dollar Amazing Race prize.

Aubrey Ares and fiancé David Hernandez may look familiar to fans of popular CBS show, The Amazing Race, currently in its 34th season. For the last 10 weeks, they’ve trekked across Germany, Austria, Italy, Jordan, France and Spain, competing against 12 other teams and emerging amongst the top five.

Ares, who describes herself as a “huge fan,” says she “grew up watching the show.”

“I don’t think we DVR’d it; I think I was home every single time the show aired,” said Ares. “Just meeting Phil [Keoghan], the host of the show, was a huge deal for me.”

Initially selected as alternates for the show, their big break came in the final moments before shooting began.

“The casting process was two months, and we would find out by May 15 if we were going to make it or not,” said Ares. “May 15 rolled around. May 16 rolled around. May 17 rolled around.”

With the start of filming approaching and no word back, Ares says that they were sure they had not made the cut. Then, while headed to a trip they had planned, the couple got the call.

“We actually booked a trip to Temecula, because we had taken the time of work off, and we were driving down on the 405 and got the phone call from the amazing race that we were on the show, and we had two hours to pack and get ready to go around the world,” said Ares.

Swept off to an initial destination unknown, Hernandez says that all contestants were “on edge.”

“Nobody wanted to sleep, everybody was trying to be strategic,” said Hernandez. “Even when we took off, everybody was trying to guess, ‘Okay, so we’re going south, we must be going to South America.’”

Their first destination would be Munich, Germany. Throughout the race, Ares and Hernandez have found themselves everywhere from the top to the bottom of the pack.

Hernandez says that there is some strategy “theoretically,” however “practically” it gets lost once the stress of the competition sets in.

“We went in there thinking, ‘You know what, you’re better at certain things, I’m better at certain things; let’s plan accordingly,” said Hernandez. “But when the moment hits you, it’s like ‘What do I do?’”

“When you’re under that pressure, and you just have the cameras on you, and you see people passing you, it’s like all of your common sense goes out the window,” added Ares.

Throughout the race, Ares says that “our relationship grew.”

“We had been together for three years, and it’s like, what’s next in our future? Are we going to do this marriage thing, are we going to build this life together, or is this just where we’re going to be at for a little bit,” said Ares. “I think that the race definitely did a number on us, for sure. We had our ups, and we definitely had our downs as I think the nation has seen.”

Hernandez says the audience has “gotten a glimpse” of who he and Ares started out as and “who we’ve continued to be.”

“There was a couple instances that really tested our relationship, because we did go into it in a pivotal moment of our relationship,” said Hernandez.

There are still a handful of episodes left this season. As the rest of the nation waits to see how Ares and Hernandez’s race unfolds, the couple is thankful for the support of their community and ask to “wish us luck.”

“The love that everyone has showed us is just crazy,” said Ares.

The Amazing Race airs on Wednesdays on CBS.