They rode bikes together as children, graduated from university together, are business partners and are now ready for their next big adventure and it promises to be amazing.

Foothills residents Kent Ladell and Martyn Bentley will be turning 49 together in the coming months and the pair hopes to get the same present – an invitation to join the first Amazing Race Canada.

CTV is bringing the Emmy-award winning show north from the United States, which will begin its 22nd season this weekend. The show’s executive producer John Brunton said Canadians have been begging for Amazing Race to come to Canada since it debuted south of the border 11 years ago.

“The response has been fantastic,” Brunton said. “Everyday we are getting hundreds of applications. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, twins, lesbians, gay men, transvestites, First Nations people.”

He said the Amazing Race appeals to everyone and has an audience of people from the age of nine to 90.

“You can’t help but to watch that show and place yourself in it,” Brunton said. “How would I react to that situation and who would I race with?”

Ladell has been watching the Amazing Race religiously and said he had to bring along his best friend and partner in business and crime.

“I’m the crazy guy with the ideas and Martyn is the one who approves them,” Ladell explained.

When Ladell raised the question of running the race, Martyn had no hesitation in rubberstamping the request.

Ladell said with both of them pushing 50 years old, the timing couldn’t be better.

“Martyn’s wife won’t let him have a girlfriend and I don’t have the money to buy a sports car for our mid-life crisis, so we will do this instead,” Ladell said.

The pair admitted they are not in the best shape, but they believe smarts and fearlessness will get them through.

“I look at it and the stupid things people do and I say I can do this, but everybody says that,” Ladell said. “The only way to find out is to get on the show and put up or shut up.”

Ladell and Bentley said they are willing to eat anything, climb anything, jump off anything and tackle whatever challenge is thrown their way.

“If one of us can’t do it, the other one will,” Ladell said.

Bentley laughingly said there is nothing he won’t eat and Ladell said he is already an experience adventure traveler with things like ziplining, backpacking and white water rafting already checked off his bucket list.

Bentley was a rodeo cowboy for five years and rode saddle bronc and bareback and continues to play rugby and fish in the backcountry.

The friends have both spent time travelling across Canada, but say the destination they hope to see is Nunavut, a place neither has had the opportunity to visit.

“In Grade 7 we spent the whole semester studying the Netsilik Inuit tribe,” Bentley recalled. “We watched a video where they were hunting seals. They pulled one right out of the water and sliced it open and ate the liver. I want to see that as a challenge.”

The pair has already started their campaign to get on the show, even scoring a celebrity endorsement from Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who was their elementary school classmate.

The pair says getting on the Amazing Race Canada would be a pivotal moment in their lives.

“It is the stage I need,” Bentley said. “It would give us an opportunity to do something epic. It would be an epic adventure.”

Bentley’s family, particularly his three boys, is backing his bid to get on the Amazing Race Canada wholeheartedly.

“My oldest son has made my Amazing Race application picture his Facebook picture and my middle son thinks he is our manager,” Bentley said laughing.

The friends of 38 years say they are quite different, but believe that will be strength and not a weakness.

“I’m the king of the one liner,” Bentley said, with Ladell adding he is happy to play the straight man to his friends’ comedy act.

The pair is currently working on their audition tape and building support for their campaign through their Facebook page Kent and Martyn on The Amazing Race Canada, which already has 188 likes.

The first season of the Amazing Race Canada will not leave the nation’s borders.

Brunton said that will change in the future, but in the first year they wanted to highlight Canadians on their home turf.

If Laddell and Bentley are lucky enough to find themselves casted on the show, they may get their wish to see Nunavut.

“It will be up north and from coast to coast to coast,” Brunton said. “We will have maple syrup running through the veins of the Amazing Race and it will be a first class production.” Auditions are open until the end of March. Brunton said they are looking for people from all segments of society who will draw their own fans.

“Its that angel dust – the person who holds the screen,” he explained. “It’s the person when you walk into a room you can’t help but notice. We want people our audience will cheer for and that people will tune in to watch week in and week out.”

The Amazing Race Canada will begin filming in late spring and air in mid-July on CTV. For more information or to apply visit www.ctv.ca/TheAmazingRaceCanada/

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