AMARGOSA VALLEY --Ildiko Lengyel, 29, a pilot for Jet Blue Airways, remarked when she's flown over rural Nevada, she looked down and thought "Whoa! That's what's down there? There's a whole lot of nothing."

But she got a surprise when she earned a place on one of the 10 teams participating in the filming of the third annual Nevada Passage adventure reality TV show this week. The teams were filmed Wednesday of last week riding dune buggies at the Amargosa sand dunes. On Thursday they had a bicycle rally on the alkali lake near Tonopah, finishing off the week with some back country skiing near Mount Rose last Friday.

"I'm finding out a lot about the state. When you think of Nevada you think of Las Vegas. You don't realize what the state has to offer. It's great to be able to get out and do something fun like this with a fun group of people. I love it," said Heather McNamara, a physical therapist from Brighton, Mich.

The plan is for the exuberance shown by the competitors in the Nevada Passage -- a show that seemed to resemble other reality TV shows spawned by the popular "Survivor" series -- spreading to an estimated 2 million TV viewers.

Unlike the popular Las Vegas tourism slogan, "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," Nevada Commission on Tourism officials hope in this case that what happens in Nevada doesn't stay in Nevada.

Only one competitor is from Nevada, Philip Glenn, a part-time emergency medical technician from Reno, part of the wild card team, drawn from applicants not part of the usual selection process of athletes with some physical conditioning and outdoor experience.

"We like to have someone from Chicago or Washington D.C. because these are major markets and the publicity they get will attract visitors to Nevada," said Chris Chrystal, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Commission on Tourism. "They can see on television a part of Nevada they don't usually see because what they usually see is the Las Vegas Strip. They don't usually see sand dune buggy racing in Nevada. They don't see riding your bicycle on an alkali lake. They don't see the Valley of Fire.

"People don't know that we have these beautiful, splendid, natural attractions in Nevada. That's why we're doing this because it's an underdeveloped tourism market for us," Chrystal said. Gambling isn't enough for Nevada tourism, she said. "Outdoor adventure enhances our overall desirability as a tourist destination."

G.L. Brown, at 63 the oldest member of the competition, a real estate consultant from Grand Rapids, Mich., and Tina Burgos, 38, a Realtor from Houston, were in last place after the first day of competition, but as part of the Realtors team they finished in first place Tuesday, riding the Big Dune challenge in two minutes, 19.45 seconds.

It has required some stamina, Burqos said, referring to the five-mile run through Valley of Fire State Park the first day of the competition.

"We had a lot of hills. I'm a flatlander from Houston so I don't get to train on hills very often," Burgos said.

They were enthused about the dune buggy competition at Amargosa Dunes.

"It's a gorgeous spot, we never expected to find this out in the middle of Nevada," Brown said. "I'm not a gambler. So would I have ever have thought of coming to Nevada? Probably not. But after seeing what else there is to offer, I can see it's a great place to bring a family for a vacation because it's more than just casinos."

Janet Clark, president of Team Unlimited, the Hawaii-based company producing the competition, said they target six sites for filming the show each year. They'll have shot scenes at 18 rural Nevada destinations after this week's third annual series is over; the Amargosa dunes were the 14th.

"This is truly a fabulous site. First of all you got the great weather for shooting TV, so you got great contrasts between blue skies and beautiful, white sand," Clark said. She said they went to Sand Mountain east of Fallon the first year for some sandboarding.

The target audience is what she called FIT -- the free and independent traveler.

"It's really good for rural Nevada because they tend to be smaller groups, self-directed, so you don't have to hire hundreds of hotel rooms," Clark said. "They do travel and they do spend a lot of money and they will do something unique and unusual."

The Amargosa Dunes are less known than the popular Dumont Dunes across the border in California but they are also open for dune buggies. There are sections however that are off-limits due to four sensitive species, three of them beetles.

Competitors interviewed after the race said they became a contestant through word-of-mouth. Some became acquainted with Team Unlimited through its production of the Xterra USA Championship triathlon race in Lake Tahoe. Nevada Passage seeks out couples in similar professions who will look good on television.

"Some people wouldn't want to do this. Last year they had bull riding, getting on a 1,500 to 2,000 pound bull," said Steve Cole, a pilot for Northwest Airlines from northern Mississippi, "You have to be fairly adventurous because you don't know what's going to be thrown at you."

While the dune buggy riding and bike riding didn't bother him, Cole said he's never skied before. Mississippi doesn't have things like big sand dunes and snow skiing, he said.

"They want people who are not necessarily pros, they want people who are going to have a fun time and promote tourism here in Nevada," Cole said.

The accountant's team, consisting of Linda Lindsay, 42, of Petaluma, Calif., and Tim Menoher, 36, or Erlanger, Ky., won this year's Nevada Passage, achieving the highest overall score after five days of competition. It was the second straight year the accountants team finished in first place.

The hour-long show will be telecast locally on KLAS-TV, Channel 8 from Las Vegas.