The Amazing Race > The Amazing Race Discussion

Student-produced version of the Amazing Race airs online

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mswood:
Oh my god, this is actually very cool.

Slowhatch:
I just finished burning and watching the Season 2 premiere. Very impressive  :tup:; and the contestant mix easily betters some of the sorrier TAR mactor seasons.

apskip:
THE RACE Episode 3  starts in Owego NY

All four teams are competing to not be eliminated today, with the top 3 going on to the following day's finale.

Challenge #1 is to drive to Binghamton 23 miles away and locate the Recreation Park carousel. It turns out that the Binghamton area (including Johnson City and Endicott) is the home of 6 antique Herschell carousels.  On the way there, the two male/male teams work together and Mike/Martha ask to join them. It looks bad for Kristin/Melissa.

Challenge #2 is find the other 5 carousels and bring back the red ribbon attached to the sign there. Each of the three allied teams goes to a different park. That way they can help each other with directions. Smart! Melissa is driving and tries to follow Matt/Jeff. They deliberately mislead her and get away, leaving her lost. I think Kristin/Melissa have tried drafting too often during the entire RACE and are now paying the price for it. The final park for all teams to get the next clue at is Ross Park.

Challenge 3 is to find the Hills Candle Factory in Fort Crain. There, they search thousands of jars for sale to find the ones marked Ithaca College TV on the label. This appears to be a luck-based task, but they are plenty of marked jars, so no team has real difficulty finding one. Kristin/Melissa are about 10 minutes behind arriving at the candle factory. Mike, Matt, Neil, and Melissa find them and the next clue sends them to Hibbardsville.

Challenge #4 is to get your picture taken with Big Norm at the Hibbardsville Mall. It turns out that the Hibbardsville Mall is just a farm building on a farm. Big Norm is the world's largest pig and you pay $2 honor system to take your picture with him. Kristin/Melissa are only 2 minutes behind arriving here. Teams now have to stay for 30 minuntes before they are released. The next clue sends them to Critz Farms in Cavenovia, where they will take the Evergreen Challenge and more.

challenge #5 The Evergreen Challenge is to find and bring back for verification of sprigs from a series of photos of various Chrsitmas trees (it looks like about eight types) that are on the farm. An expert tells teams that they either are right or made a mistake with each one they bring back. The order of finish was Mike/Martha, Neil/Rick, Matt/Jeff, and Kristin/Melissa.

Next is the classic luck-based task, Needle-in-a-Haystack. One member of each team has to search through 4 bales of hay for a needle. After one hour their teammate joined them, but it didn't help. No team found a needle in the allotted, which I don't know but it was multiple hours.

So, tiebreaker was used, the Pumpkin Carry. Team had 3 pumpkins and had to carve them open to get 25 seeds from each and carry them down a field shorter than 100 yards and back empty, alternating team member. Neil/Rick broke their knife and were handicapped by that in finishing. Order of finish was Matt/Jeff, Mike/Martha, Kristin/Melissa(good for them, finally out of last place), and Neil/Rick. The final clue is to East Syracuse DeWitt Town Hall for the pitstop. It is a neck and neck race for all 4 teams. Kristin/Melissa have to stop for directions, but later they get someone to lead them directly to Town Hall. However, it is a virtual 3-way tie at the finish:

Mike/Martha
Neil/Rick (what a comeback)
Matt/Jeff

Kristin/Melissa were less than one minute behind and were eliminated.

apskip:
THE RACE, FINAL EPISODE

Since the last post in this thread is my Episode 3 recap, I am going ahead with this recap one day earlier than planned. We start in DeWitt NY.

The first clue sends each of the 3 teams to the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. Teams appear to be released in one minute intervals. Matt and Jeff state that they have visited one of their brothers recently in a dorm at Syracuse U. so that should give them an edge (it doesn't). Rick and Neil see the Carrier Dome on a hill first, with Mike and Martha close behind. Matt and Jeff are about 5 minutes behind. The next clue is available in the parking lot and it takes them on foot with one team member being blindfolded and led away and given a cell phone when they get there to contact their partner who is at the original spot. The partner has to navigate using their instructions and find them to get the next clue. This is tricky as they are on the fifth floor of a nondescript building about a half mile away. Mike gets to the right area at ground level and Martha spots him and guides him in and up. Rick and Neil are about one minute beind. Matt and Jeff make up time and are 2 minutes behind. The next clue is for Owen Orchard Auburn NY plus the first key for a future challenge.

Matt and Jeff now think they know where this orchard is, but they don't act on that and ask for directions like the other teams. Rick and Neil overshoot and find that it's "back on route 5." Mike and Martha arrive first and find that they have to find 3 golden apples but can ask bystanders to help them. They ask several and the little kids are particularly adept in finding (or already knowing, I suspect) on which trees the golden apples can be found. All 3 of their golden apples were found by kids. They get into a tractor-pulled cart and go back to the entrance. Rick and Neil started slightly behind and get also some helpful kids, but only one of their 3 golden apples is found by the kids. They can't find a cart, so they jog in with some loss of time. Matt and Jeff also used kids, who found one of their 3 apples. However, the tractor and cart were available to them when they needed to get back to the entrance.

The next clue sends teams to Cayuga Nature Center back in Ithaca (you know you're close to the finish line when you are back in the starting town) but they are also instructed to take 2 small bags of apples at Owen Orchard and have them available for the future. Cayuga Nature Center is one of those stupid just-get-a clue-to-go-somewhere-else tasks, although it does have a second key. Rick and Neil and Mike and Martha arrive together. The clue sends teams on to the Ithaca Farmer's Market where they are supposed to exchange one of their bags of apples for their next clue with one vendor.

Mike and Martha arrive first at Ithaca Farmers Market. They methodically ask vendors until they find the old lady who has their clue and give her the bag of apples. Rick and Neil are second and Matt and Jeff third. the next clue is a walking tour of the Planets, which is set up the Museum of Science in Ithaca and involves 9 separate stations representing each of the planets and the "center of the solar system" which is where the next clue is. Teams have to climb the fence at the Farmers Market to get the shortest route to the Planet Walk. Rick and Neil grab the lead. Mike and Martha go astray at a school. Matt and Jeff continue to be last. Rick and Neil finish their 9th planet when Mike and Martha have only 5. They they get a third key and have to solve a Commons Puzzle. A tracing ties together the keys they have been given to indicate the railroad tracks at their feet. There is an arrow on the map which points haphazardly in a direction. In that direction at the edge of a circle are the names Ithaca Falls, Cascadeville Creek, and Beebe Lake. Rick and Neil can call a taxi, but they must tell it where to take them. They choose Cascadeville Creek. When they get there, there is no clue box, so they reroute to Ithaca Falls. Mike and Martha saw them just before they finished solving it, so it was wasy for them and they made up time. They elected to go to Cascadeville Falls, then to Beebe Lake, finally to Ithaca Falls. Matt and Jeff weree behind but they chose Ithaca Falls. Even so, they arrived there third. Ithaca Falls is where the final clue box was. It sent teams back to the Ithaca College campus for a final challenge.

Teams had a board similar to chess but smaller. They had to arrange 16 puzzle pieces so that the 4 sides match up with all adjacent pieces. It sounds easy but isn't because they had to work through a lot of combinations. There were some false starts where teams thought they had solved it. It was not clear who was going to win, although Matt and jeff had much less time than the other two teams. Rick and Neil barely edged out Matt and Jeff in solving the puzzle, then could not lose the short footrace to the finish line. Mike and Martha appeared to be about one minute behind.

apskip:
While others are getting all worked up over Survivor China and Kid Nation, I have started watching THE RACE 2, which premiered last night on Ithaca College TV, channel 16 is you happen to live in Ithaca NY. Their programs' live webcast, requiring REAL Player only to view, is supposed to be accessible over the Internet, but I could not successfully connect to it. The alternative is to wait until their Video-on-Demand is available. It requires Quicktime, which can be downloaded for free. The show is on Wednesday nights at 930pm, so it is not clear how fast after that they will have the episodes up, but I expect pretty fast. I have decided to post reviews on Saturdays starting in 48 hours. Since the first episode of THE RACE 2 was already available, I will certainly be able to meet that goal; for future episode, time will tell.

Here is a link to The Race 2:

The Race 2

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