By Heather Leszczewicz Special to OnMilwaukee.com Published Jan 16, 2007 at 3:54 PM

CBS announced the cast for the All-Star Race, which begins airing on Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. CST and I'm truly excited. CBS' realty shows have had some of the most interesting characters in TV history and a few of them will be make appearances.

Frankly, though, there are more than a few teams on this race that for the life of me, I can't remember. So I'll just mention the ones I'm going to be rooting for or waiting to see fireworks from.

CBS' reality TV darlings Rob and Amber Mariano are back. The season seven runners-up are the team I really wanted to win during that race around the world. Although it's most likely that CBS decided to do this race just to bring them back, I can't wait to see what happens. I'm not sorry to say that I've missed Boston Rob's accent.

Season 10 had a few gems and they were the ones that made the last season interesting. First are Team Kentucky, Mary and David Conley. During their season you saw Mary yelling nonstop at David while they both discovered the world around them. It was hard not to feel for them.

There was also fourth place team "The Blondes," Dustin Seltzer and Kandice Pelletier. These beauty queens weren't out to make friends, they were out to win. Too bad their drive bit them in the butt. It made for one of the worst "Amazing Race" season finales because of the predictability. If it had been a race between the beauty queens and the models, then it would have been worth watching.

Finally, there's season five divas Charla Baklayan Faddoul and Mirna Hindoyan. They provided plenty of fireworks as they used Charla's size to their advantage. Can't wait to see is at the receiving end of Mirna's wrath during this season.

Those are the few that I am sure I'll enjoy, but there are two that I think could move up.

There's only one team of winners, Uchenna and Joyce Agu who won over Rob and Amber in season seven. They're an alright team, but hopefully they have something more memorable on this race. They only thing I seem to remember is a fast forward that had required Joyce to shave her head.

After a small refresher, I remember Teri and Ian of season three. I just remember Ian thinking he knew everything and something having to do with putting the wrong kind of fuel in his car which required him to actually suck out the fuel from the tank in order to be on their way.

The filming is already done and those sneaky producers decided to be as mean to the teams as possibe, throwing them into extreme situations like really hot weather to really cold weather. That had to have put everyone on edge and in fine fighting form.

But I am a bit disappointed with the choices for teams. Yes I have a couple to cheer for, but we needed more fiery contestants. Jonathan and Victoria, who only seem to make appearances on "The Girls Next Door" now a days, of season six. I heard early on that they refused to participated, but seriously, who wouldn't want to see if Jonathan changed or not? Is he sweet now? Or still evil towards his wife in high stress situations?

Well, only a few weeks until the kick-off! In the mean time I may try to read up on a few other teams to see if I can remember them.

Heather Leszczewicz Special to OnMilwaukee.com

Originally from Des Plaines, Ill., Heather moved to Milwaukee to earn a B.A. in journalism from Marquette University. With a tongue-twisting last name like Leszczewicz, it's best to go into a career where people don't need to say your name often.

However, she's still sticking to some of her Illinoisan ways (she won't reform when it comes to things like pop, water fountain or ATM), though she's grown to enjoy her time in the Brew City.

Although her journalism career is still budding, Heather has had the chance for some once-in-a-lifetime interviews with celebrities like actor Vince Vaughn and actress Charlize Theron, director Cameron Crowe and singers Ben Kweller and Isaac Hanson of '90s brother boy band Hanson. 

Heather's a self-proclaimed workaholic but loves her entertainment. She's a real television and movie fanatic, book nerd, music junkie, coffee addict and pop culture aficionado.