Upon seeing that it was his birthday yesterday, I decided to look up how many times it has happened while he was filming TAR, where he was at, and if anything unique happened. It turns out that a lot of interesting occasions happened on his birthday!
(Spoilers ahead of previous seasons)
Season 10: Phil’s birthday occurred while Leg 2 took place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Along with this being the only US TAR visit to Mongolia so far, it also featured a rare occurrence where Kellie of Kellie and Jamie quit the roadblock while already knowing all the other teams already checked in to the pit stop.
Season 17: Leg 4 started in Ghana as teams began flying to Kiruna, Sweden. Regardless if Phil made it there during his birthday or not, he at the very least was flying to the Arctic Circle, which was a first for the Amazing Race.
Season 21: Now here is where things start to get juicy. It was Leg 3 in Surabaya, Indonesia. It was this leg where one of the craziest finishes of all time occurred. It was when Gary and Will and Caitlin and Brittany we’re racing each other to the pit stop (in what I think is a tuk-tuk, I don’t know for sure) when both teams reached a fork in the road and their drivers went in opposite directions, which meant both teams knew their fates were sealed but not which fate was good or bad. It ended up with Gary and Will making the comeback with Caitlin and Brittany being eliminated in tough fashion.
Season 25: It was the first ever live starting line in TAR history, the start of the 25th season, along with celebrating that milestone with a throwback to Season 1. The perfect start to Phil’s birthday. He and the teams would fly to the US Virgin Islands which ended up being one of the overall most intense first legs ever. It started with Michael and Scott and Lisa and Michelle racing to the sign up board where one of Lisa and Michelle stole the pen, setting the stage for the one-leg rivalry. Eventually, a roadblock so tough that the previously mentioned teams and Keith and Whitney agreed to each take a penalty for the roadblock. It was a race to the taxis where Michael and Scott got their revenge on Lisa and Michelle with some rough payback. Lisa and Michelle would end up being eliminated.
Season 34: Not allowed to say
Some key themes from Phil’s birthdays: unique locations, taxis races to the pit stops, teams taking roadblock penalties (4 teams in total), older male teams winning races to the pit stops, and young female teams eliminated (with five of them being blonde).
