The 'Amazing' Phil and his sanitary needs
"The Amazing Race" panel, featuring host Phil Keoghan and executive producers Bertram Van Munster and Jonathan Littman, was located in a small room that was jam-packed, reflecting the enduring popularity of one of TV's classier reality shows. Yes, "classy" and "reality show" are not mutually exclusive, to many folks' surprise. There was a surprise for me, though: Learning that Phil's last name, which I'd been mentally pronouncing "Key-gan," was really pronounced as if it's spelled "Co-gan."

The 12-team cast of the 10th season of "Race" was officially announced at the panel, and interesting teams abound. Vipul and Arti Patel are the first Indian-American team to run the "Race"; Bilal Abdul-Mani and Sa'eed Rudolph are the show's first Islamic pair; and Dustin Konzelman and Kandice Pelletier are Miss California USA and Miss New York USA, respectively. Readers of MSNBC.com's Ask the Reality Experts column, which I write with Andy Dehnart, know that we've been discussing physically challenged reality show contestants recently. This "Race" features Peter Harsch and Sarah Reinertsen — Peter is a clinical prosthetist and Sarah is the first woman with an artificial leg to complete the Hawaii Iron Man Triathlon. Host Phil remarked that Sarah's grit and determination reminded him of past "Race" contestant Charla Faddoul, still a favorite with many viewers.

Fans who hated the family edition of "Amazing Race" for its limited travel scope should be back on board this season. Pitstops on this race included China, Mongolia, North Vietnam, Madagascar and Kuwait, 60 kilometers from the Iraqi border. The race dove into the tough countries immediately, the panel spokesmen reported, not giving the teams the usual chance to break into the world travel somewhat slowly.

The "Race" panel was full of juicy tidbits that may end up in an Ask the Experts column down the line, but here are just a few worth noting now.

• An openly gay couple on "Race" didn't face any extra problems in countries where homosexuality is outlawed; nor did the Islamic team face any extra trouble going through airport security.
• Phil's still asked if he goes sightseeing or shopping when he's not filming his parts of the show, but since the show is traveling up to 75,000 miles in a short 28 days, taking 2.5 days to complete an episode, he's got no time for that. Sometimes, he confessed, he has literally had to run to the pit stop mat seconds before a team arrives. At least once he's slept on an airport bench while the rest of the crew was "four-starring it," as Van Munster put it, in a nice hotel.
• Phil's secret to keeping the sweat down? Sanitary pads under his armpits. "It stops the flow, so to speak," he confided. I don't make this up, folks, I just report it.
• When asked about "Race" veteran Jonathan Baker's claims that the show misrepresented him, Van Munster was blunt. "I can replace all of the footage [that was shown] with other footage and he's the same guy," he said.
• Ask the Experts readers always want to know: Are elimination and non-elimination legs worked out in advance, or do the producers play fast-and-loose with the rounds? Many found it hard to believe that the victorious hippies of last season lucked into placing last in two non-elimination rounds, but Van Munster and crew positively denied that any trickery, saying whether a round was an elimination round or not was decided well in advance of filming, and to do otherwise would be "a form of manipulation ... we don't do that at all."
• Fans of the "Survivor" and "Big Brother" All-Star editions are eternally curious as to whether "Race" will try that concept. Odds of this happening are "50/50," Littman said, confessing to making up fantasy lists of wannabe all-star casts in his head.
• Ask the Experts is asked all the time: Where do the eliminated teams go? They can't go home -- that would signal to hometown folks that they obviously didn't win. Yet they don't continue to travel with the show, either. I grabbed Littman briefly after the panel to ask him this very question in private, and he told me that the ousted teams go to "a neutral city," like Loser Island on "Survivor," only "ours is a lot nicer."