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Hoskote & Naina: Father/daughter. First, there hasn’t been a parent/child team to win the Amazing Race in the previous 22 seasons (even the much-reviled family edition saw an all siblings team win) and I doubt very seriously that this will be the team to blaze that trail. Second, I fear that this is the second coming of Ron & Christina with an overbearing and bossy father not listening to his adult daughter or trusting her decisions. Hoskote (or HP) is an ER doctor and admits that he is used to people not questioning his orders but hopes the Race can teach him. I hate to break it to him but if it hasn’t changed or been taught by this point in his life, it probably won’t be happening. Sorry, Naina, but I predict you will be out in eighth place.

Brandon & Adam: Friends and beard enthusiasts. If you thought Rowan & Shane with their Bingo ruse would be the oddest team on the Race, you would be wrong. At least, for the sake of appearances, these 30-somethings with long hair and equally long beards seem to fit the bill for team to stand out in a crowd. Adam could probably be described as a minimalist since he lives on $5,000 a year on a near-self-sustaining farm with his wife. That type of independence and aptitude will probably serve them fairly well on some challenges but I don’t know how they will handle the physical aspects of the Race. That uncertainty is why I am placing them in seventh place, but they are my spoiler team because I could easily see them surprising us all and cracking the top three a la hippie winners BJ & Tyler.

Tim & Marie: Exes from New Jersey. My track record of picking winners is as equally as dubious as pegging the teams that will be the season’s villains or most reviled teams. Despite that fact, I continue to throw out such assumptions at the beginning of each season and here is the team that I feel confident in labeling as such. Mix Marie’s lack of humility in her assertion that they are more physically fit and capable that any of the other teams and Tim’s admission that they will fight over whose idea is the best (a glimpse into why they are "exes"). What do you get? A caustic team that will rub the other teams, the audience and each other the wrong way until they are eliminated. Unfortunately, such teams can go fairly deep into the Race and I think Tim & Marie will do the same with a sixth place finish.

Chester & Ephairm: Friends and former Houston Texans teammates. These guys will probably be one of more fun and entertaining teams on the Race as previous professional sports teammates have historically proven (see last season’s winners Bates & Anthony and Unfinished Business season runners-up Big Easy & Flight Time). But entertaining doesn’t always translate to success on the Race. They have competed together, which should be an asset, but the Amazing Race isn’t an afternoon playing football. The biggest concern I have is that in their interview, they seemed more concerned with poking fun at one another and talking over the other person, which if indicative of how they will race, I don’t think they will be long for season 23. Let’s put them slightly ahead of the middle of the pack as the fifth place team.

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