Topic: Questions and Discussion thread for TAR stats

[ImANewUser]

^^Winners often do well in Leg 1.

Rob & Brennan - 1st
Flo & Zach - 2nd
Freddy & Kendra - 4th
BJ & Tyler - 2nd
Tyler & James - 1st
Eric & Danielle - 4th
TK & Rachel - 3rd
Nick & Starr - 1st
Tammy & Victor - 2nd
Meghan & Cheyne - 1st
Joe Jer & Zabrina - 3rd
Patricia & Sane - 3rd
Matias & Tamara - 1st

Notice how later seasons seem to become MORE & MORE predictable.

[Glamazon Racer]

Notice how later seasons seem to become MORE & MORE predictable.

Yeah, that is strange. However, Eric & Danielle finished 4th on Leg 1 (right?), and you had written 1st.

[ImANewUser]

However, Eric & Danielle finished 4th on Leg 1 (right?), and you had written 1st.

I meant 4th. Thanks.

[redskevin88]

And how no B/G team won AR Asia... It was G/G, B/B and B/B all the way...

[slayton]

I don't know if anyone has already done this, but I compiled this three months ago.

I think the stats are interesting.

Ages from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Amazing_Race_(U.S._TV_series)_contestants

Combined ages of all TAR winners from oldest combined age to youngest combined age:.

TAR5 -- Chip & Kim, 46 and 44, COMBINED AGE = 90
TAR7 -- Uchenna & Joyce, 40 and 44, COMBINED AGE = 84
TAR4 -- Reichen & Chip, 28 and 36, COMBINED AGE = 64
TAR14 -- Tammy & Victor, 26 and 35, COMBINED AGE = 61
TAR6 -- Freddy & Kendra, 34 and 25, COMBINED AGE = 59
TAR1 -- Rob & Brennan, 27 and 29, COMBINED AGE = 56
TAR10 -- Tyler & James, 29 and 27 , COMBINED AGE = 56

TAR9 -- BJ & Tyler, 26 and 25, COMBINED AGE = 51
TAR11 -- Eric & Danielle, 28 and 23, COMBINED AGE = 51
TAR2 -- Chris & Alex, 25 and 24, COMBINED AGE = 49
TAR3 -- Flo & Zach, 23 and 23, COMBINED AGE = 46
TAR15 -- Meghan & Cheyne, 23 and 23, COMBINED AGE = 46
TAR12 -- TK & Rachel, 22 and 23, COMBINED AGE = 45
TAR13 -- Nick & Starr, 22 and 21, COMBINED AGE = 43

TAR8 -- Linz family, 24 22 21 19, COMBINED AGE = 86


-- TAR1-TAR7 have 5 of the 7 oldest winning teams in TAR history.

-- TAR12-TAR15 have 3 of the 4 youngest winning teams in TAR history.

-- Ten of the winning teams in TAR1-TAR15 have all team members in their twenties or younger.

-- Every winning team in TAR1-TAR15 has either all members in their twenties or younger, all members in their forties, or one member in their twenties and one in their thirties.

-- Out of the six remaining teams in TAR16, there are 2 teams of twenty-year-olds, 2 teams of forty-year-olds, 1 team with a twenty-year-old and a thirty-year-old, and 1 team with a fifty-year-old and a twenty-year-old.

[Caelestor]

Of interesting note is that the winners have mostly been co-ed. Occasionally, an M/M/ team wins, but that's only about 35% (?) of the time.

[mswood]

For the record, Eric/Jeremy have the best placement average in the history of TAR (1.75). Meghan and Cheyne cannot best that performance no matter how they finish the final leg of 15. And this is what make E/J's second place finish such a shock. Those two really did dominate their season.

And I will point out that Eric/Jeremy were great when it was not vital to be, but they finished behind BJ/Tyler in each of the final 3 legs of AR9. So, which is those teams is really the superior one?

Well that depends apskip, it's like saying Chip & Kim ran a better leg since they finished the last three better then Colin & Christie.  The difference being that in the Case of Eric & Jeremy in comparison with BJ & Tyler actually ran (when eliminating bunching) stronger legs in the last two legs, and the first of those three BJ & Tyler won only due to a Fast Forward that Eric & Jeremy were not able to take.   

So really while one team officially won those three legs did they truly run stronger legs?

It's like saying Louie & Michael ran stronger leg (episode 5) this season when they placed in first.  But when you factor in arrival and departure times, they actually performed the worse out of any team that wasn't eliminated in that episode.   

[mswood]

I have departure times from Seasons 1 to 5.

Do you know if there's a compilation of every departure time in TAR history?

Someone said that they measured how great a team was by the amount of time that they beat the second place teams by, and I had never considered that before.

In TAR14, Tammy & Victor departed leg 3 first at 10:13am and Mel & Mike departed second at 12:01pm.  Tammy & Victor departed episode 12 first at 9:15pm and Margie & Luke departed second at 11:24pm.  In both cases, Tammy & Victor started the previous legs/episodes in second or worse place and ended up with huge leads without using a fast forward.

The only problem with using departure times are possible production errors, like in leg 8 of TAR14, where they said that Tammy & Victor departed first at 9:27pm and Jaime & Cara departed second at 12:31am.

Actually this is often the factor I use in determining who is actually a good or great team, but I don't run off just start to end time (because it often doesn't reflect how a team really did things to multiple bunching points).

One also needs to factor in transportation, Hours of Operations, ect.

For example in a leg that features no bunching at all (there have been I believe 7 or 8 of them now, it doesn't happen often) you can compare based on completion time versus departure time.

But then you have most episode where you truly can't judge this.

Take All Stars episode #3.  Teams have to leave the Pit Stop go back into town (15 mile drive) go to airport and arrange flights.  Well we known that on that aspect of the leg Dustin & Kandice (and also Teri & Ian who were following them) drove for over an hour and a half just getting back to town.  But since teams were equalized at the airport this didn't effect them checking into the Pit Stop.  So you would need to factor that in.  And obviously you don't get specific times for aspects of the race like that (unless teams make a large error, thus why that one got mentioned).  I had tried making a list for this (and done so for seasons 9-11), but it will never be 100% accurate as not all times are shown for early portions of legs.

[slayton]

I enjoy statistical minutiae, so here are 6 commonalities, at the time of the race, with the two forty-year-old winning teams:

TAR5 -- Chip & Kim, 46 and 44
TAR7 -- Uchenna & Joyce, 40 and 44


• Both teams are co-ed.
• Both teams are married.
• Both teams are African-American.
• Both teams started the race with a completely bald/shaven-headed male teammate.
• Both teams had one teammate with previous acting credits.
• Both teams had a female teammate at age 44.

If you're a team of forty-year-olds on the race, you're facing a sextuple whammy if you don't have these traits.

[apskip]

slayton,

Nice analysis but you missed their most important connection:

They were both the beneficiary of incredible luck in beating a stronger team on the last leg, Colin/Christie in AR5 and Rob/Amber in AR7, respectively.

[slayton]

I disagree about Uchenna & Joyce being lucky. 

Chip & Kim got lucky with a better flight because they got to the airport last.  This virtually sealed their victory.

I think Uchenna & Joyce had the toughest road to victory out of all the winners.  (I don't know about Tyler & James because I still refuse to watch the last 3 TAR10 episodes.)

Uchenna & Joyce's taxi got a flat tire in the penultimate leg, which made them start the final leg with no money.
 
They had problems convincing people to give them money at the airport in Jamaica.  (I think the fact that Uchenna & Joyce were black played a huge factor in this.)

The airline agent, according to Uchenna & Joyce, lied to them about Rob & Amber's flight.

They were second to get a taxi in Miami, and they had to beg people for more money so that they could settle their taxi bill and cross the finish line.

I would agree with the argument that Chip & Kim won because of one specific thing: getting a better flight because of getting to the airport last.

Overall, I think Uchenna & Joyce's luck was a wash.  To me, Uchenna & Joyce won because they had ferocious tenacity.  They had to fight and battle their way to victory.  It was a constant struggle.  They were my favorite winners before Tammy & Victor moved them down to second.  (Chip & Kim are my third favorite.)

[Hooky]

Uchenna & Joyce second to Tammy & Victor? Never!

[slayton]

Seasons where all final 3 teams were never last in any pre-final-3 leg (per wikipedia):

• TAR10
• TAR14

[theschnauzers]

Here's the thread that folks use to discuss TAR statstics.

[tarflyonthewall]

Seasons where all final 3 teams were never last in any pre-final-3 leg (per wikipedia):

    * TAR10

Technically, that's wrong. Lyn and Karlyn were last in Madagascar, but were saved only by David and Mary's MFE elimination.