Lane twins win on ABC's 'Wipeout'
By Matthew Whittle
Published in News on February 27, 2011 1:50 AM
Twins Gary and Larry Lane came out on top Thursday as the duo won the team family competition on ABC's "Winter Wipeout," pocketing $50,000 in the process.
Having filmed the episode for the popular TV game show in November, the pair had kept their success a secret for the last three months. Fortunately, Gary said, they had a little experience at how to do so after going through it years ago with NBC's "Fear Factor."
"We had only told our mom and dad -- nobody else," Gary said. "It's more fun that way. That way people can watch and really experience that night. And, it's a little bit of a breach of contract."
Still, it was hard at times to keep it secret, especially as people found out they were going to be on it.
"It was nonstop. We'd be telling people to watch 'Wipeout' and the next thing out of their mouth was always, 'How did you do?'" he said.
The toughest part of waiting, though, the Rosewood native said, was wondering what their storyline was going to be. He said he thought it was going to be something to do with the evil Cobra twins from G.I. Joe -- they had played up the angle of when one gets hit, the other feels it -- but that perhaps there was some sort of copyright issue, because the announcers went with a fairly generic twin shtick.
"We've always been called 'Glary' and stuff like that," Gary said.
But despite the ribbing from the judges, the pair turned in the night's best time on the final obstacle course to beat a father/daughter duo, though they did forfeit an earlier $1,000 challenge to that same pair for her college fund.
"My arms were like jelly, and I think Larry's were, too. We were playing for the $50,000," Gary said.
The best part about Thursday, though, he said, was unlike when they won "Fear Factor," this time they were able to interact with their friends and family all over the country through Facebook and Twitter as they were watching.
"We were able to share it with everybody as it was happening," Gary said. "That was nice."
But, he said, it likely will be their last reality show.
"Our mom can rest easy now. I think this will be the end of our reality show run -- unless the 'Amazing Race' or 'Survivor' has a twin episode, then we'd probably do that," he said.
And so they're making sure their winnings this time go to a good cause -- a deck for their grandmother, Alma Daniels.