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THE RACE 2, episode 1

This second version starts on the Ithaca College campus once again, this time with 8 teams:

Hal/Matilda - brother/sister from Oxford England

Sadie/Geniola - rommates

Daniel/Jeff - from an a cappella group

Kristiyan and Nick - a Bulgarian and his American roommate

Jon/Jenna - longterm friends from Scranton PA

Drew/Vanessa - a team put together at the last minute from 2 strangers

Dave and Matt - from a comedy group

Nick and Chris - drniking buddies from PA

The starting line is at Stewart Park at Cayuga Lake. The clue sends teams to a bridge around the lake. This is probably the single most interesting task I have ever seen on any Amazing Race-equivalent because teams are challenged to think and invent. There are 8 marked barrels floating near that bridge. Each team must take a set of materials provided and use them to make a fishing line strong enough to hook their marked barrel, haul it in and capture their car keys inside it. A few teams catch on fast and do really well. The others learn from watching the fast teams, as those complaining about how impossible it is seem to figure it out after seeing their competition succeed. The first team to hook a barrel, Dave and Matt, hooks the wrong barrel and get some other team's keys and then use a spare key of their own. I was sure that when they checked in at the pitstop whey were going to receive a stiff penalty for this, but the RACE 2 producers missed it in the correct time frame or decided not to act. 

The next clue takes teams on to Beebe Lake, where they will find their next clue near the waterfall. Dave and Matt get there first and, heedless to the lack of parking, decide to park their car in the street. It turns out that a Cornell University bus route goes right by there and they have blocked the next 2 buses. Police are out lookign for them as they find the clue and manage to slip out of town unnoticed. Next is a DETOUR, Alpaca Antics or Maple Madness. In Alpaca Antics drive 34 miles and then herd alpaca into a marked pen with a long wand. Maple Madness is going 28 miles and answering the question Which of You Wants to go for a Ride?, which is the Soapbox Derby kind. The course is short and deceptively looks quite easy, but the steering has to be treacherous. It takes almost nothing to cause the derby racers to go off course and into hay bales. Those who succeed at this do so by going very slow at the start; one or two actually use reclined footpower to bring the racer across the line. At this point, Hal/Matilda were going quite slow. However, Chris/Nick may have had one too many the night before; they far behind.

The final clue sends teams to the Broome County Courthouse, Binghamton. The finish order is:

1. Nick and Kristiyan - who did Alpacas
2. Dave and Matt - who did Alpacas   (Note: it is clear that the first two teams hate each other; there was interaction on an expressway)
3. Jon and Jenna - did Soapbox
4. Sadie and Geniola - did Alpacas
5. Hal and Matilda - did Soapbox
6. Daniel and Jeff - did Soapbox
7. Drew and Vanessa - did Alpacas
8. Chris and Nick - did Soapbox

The next clue was given out and Nick and Chris were eliminated. No loss there. It won't belong before Hal/Matilda join them, as they are congenitally slow.

I liked this episode. It ran less than one hour, unlike the first episode of The Race 1, which was 90 minutes to introduce a smaller number of teams. That forced this episode to be quite limited in scope. It looks like The Race 2 will have another 5 episodes, which is fine by me. 

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The Race 2, episode 2

First, please note that ICTV has fixed their live broadcast over the web, so you can watch future episodes Wednesday nights at 930pm using REAL Player. The other alternative is the after-the-fact webcasts discussed previously. A link to both is provided by going either to my link a few posts earlier or to puddin's link that starts this thread.

This episode started in Binghampton after a short rest period. Teams received their clues as they checked in to the pitstop for the prior leg. When allowed to open them, teams find out that they must go to Gary's U Pull It auto junkyard in Kirkwood and locate 3 specific parts, a Mercury hubcap, a Dodge wheel, and an interior roof panel from a third model. Nothing extraordinary happens there except that Matt and Jeff arrived first and put glue and gunk on the envelopes and clues for the other teams, which was pretty nasty.

The next clue takes teams to a store named Old Odd and Under back in Binghamton's Antique row area. The clue sends teams to 2 different antique dealers and teams have to guess which of 3 items is the most valuable twice. That means that each team has a 1/9 chance at getting both guesses correct in a consolidated answer sheet, which is judged by a Historian. That means that this is almost totally a luck-based task with wide variations in outcome expected. The correct answers are Weather Vane and Portrait of a Girl.  Any combination other than that is wrong, but teams are not told exactly what was the cause of being wrong. They have to guess again to take another shot at it.  That causes teams to zero in on the correct combination by trial and error, sometimes using up to 6 tries to do so. Two teams (Daniel/Jeff and Hal/Matilda) get none right. Most teams guess one of two correctly on their first try. No teams guesses both correctly on their first try. On their second try, some teams are narrowing in.

Jon and Jenna get it on their 2nd try to take the lead. Matt and Dave were right behind them after requiring 3 tries. Sadie/Ginalola got it after their 4th trip and finished that task 3rd.

Next teams went to a bridge to retrieve a clue. It gave them 3 sets of shoelaces, which had to be exchanged for the shoelaces of 3 people. The color schemes on some of the shoelaces or specialty type of them made them unpopular, which cost time for the unlucky team that inherited them.

The final clue sent teams to the pitstop at the Pub Diner. finishing order there was:

1. Jon and Jenna
2. Matt and Dave
3. Sadie and Ginalola
4. Drew and Vanessa
5. Daniel and Jeff
6. Hal and Matilda
7. Kristiyan and Nick

For the second week in a row, a Kris and Nick team was eliminated, this time because of trouble with the antiques. Hal and Matilda were barely better. Their slowness did not eliminate them this week as I predicted, but it is only a matter of time.

This week's task were very lackluster. Juding antiques is not something that interests most college students and they did not do well at it. Finding auto parts was kind of dumb in that it did not significantly differentiate teams. The shoelace task was the only one which had real life to it.

apskip:
I now have had the opportunity to view this episode both ways, Live Webcast on Real Player and On-Demand on Quicktime. I vastly prefer the quality on Quicktime, so there will be no more Wednesdays at 930pm for me.

THE RACE 2, episode 3

This episode takes place on a rainy day in the Binghampton area. We learn that Jeff and Daniel are SUNY-Binghamton students, which they believe will give them a big advantage. We'll see. I have not previously been aware that any racers were not from Ithaca College. Could there be any Cornell U. students lurking on other teams?

The first challenge to is obtain 50 empty cans or bottles with 5 cent deposit value and take them to The Can Man. This was a wonderful challenge since it tested the ingenuity of the teams. Jon and Jenna got their clue first at the Park Diner and proceeded to ask the proprietor if he had any empty can or bottles in the trash. He did, 73 in fact, so Jon and Jenna took them and foreclosed any other team from doing that (one actually thought of it and tried).
Matt and Dave try dumpster diving, but after not too long they go to a local Giant supermarket and buy low-priced soda cans.  Sadie and Ginalola were diligent at dumpster diving and came up with the requisite number. Drew and Vanessa went dumpster diving for a long time, then thought about buying soda but didn't do it then; by the time they actually came back to a 7-11 type place to buy soda they were in last place. Jeff and Daniel used their local area knowledge to get some large trash bags full of cans, but it took a while. They thought they were going to be in first, but when they arrived at The Can Man they found out they were 5th. Hal and Matilda continue to not impress me, but they bought soda relatively quickly and got themselves into 4th place.

The next clue was Where's Gordy. Teams had to drive to Ostenengo Park, which is quite large and find an individual who had a red and black zipper plus blue and white shoes. His name is Gordy and he had the clues for each team. This could have been interesting in theory, but in practice the order out of The Can Man was exactly maintained. Dave and Matt had a lucky break when a park policeman who pulled them over decided not to ticket them for driving on the sidewalk.

The final clue sent teams to the Owego Fire Department. This was a no-brainer and again the order was exactly maintained, except that Sadie and Ginalola got into 2nd place. The finish order was:

1. Jon and Jenna
2. Sadie and Ginalola
3. Dave and Matt
4. Hal and Matilda(who were at the Fire Department buildings a long time before they figured out the correct entrance)
5. Jeff and Daniel
6. Drew and Vanessa were eliminated. I liked them as a brand new team that was functioning well together. I was sad to see them go.

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The RACE 2 Episode 4

Wow! Stupendous! What was intended to be a normal 45 minute episode of The Race 2 had so many fireworks that it became a 90 minute episode instead. We start in Owego with the interlude between episodes 3 and 4. Dave and Matt, in an effort to throw the other teams off, pretend to damage their cars and pull other pranks to prevent the other teams from getting a good night's rest. Needless to say, they solidify their persona non grata status with the other 4 teams.

Challenge #1 takes place at the Owego Fire Training Center. Teams drive there and locate the fire truck(it's hard to miss in the open). The clue has to be found on the truck, which gets progressively harder from the first to last team. One non-claustrophobic team member has to don fireman's gear, go into a smoke-filled building, navigate through tight spaces to find a dummy and bring it back to the entrance. The other team member has to hook up the couplings for the hose connecting the water main to the fire truck. The couplings are easy and don't take long. Nobody has serious trouble with the navigation inside the building except Sadie(or maybe it was Ginalola, i'm not sure). This was not a well-designed task because it made the rich get richer. Jon and Jenna's lead got larger as all the teams behind Sadie and Ginalola were held up until that team could finish because there was only one building accommodating one person being tested at a time.

The clue sent teams on to the Sa-Na-Na Loft Monument. Teams had to figure out that this was in the Evergreen Cemetery and go there. It was not easy to find even for those with directions. Once there they had to find this monument known locally as the Indian Girl Monument. They then found a clue box with their next clue.

The next challenge was to spot a waved banner in town from the Scenic Overlook adjacent to the Monument. This requried an eagle eye becuase the sign was about 2' x 3' and the distance was about 2 miles.  Once spotted, you have to drive there to pick up your next clue. This was difficult and could have resulted in a change in relative position, but it didn't. Jon and Jenna spotted it first and drove in and parked so that other teams could not see their vehicle when they went to get the clue. Later, Sadie and Ginalola and Hal and Matilda did the same. Daniel and Jeff and Dave and Matt were almost in a tie in picking up the next clue and they were in a tie in getting to the following cluebox.

Next was the ultimate challenge, probably the best task I have seen in reality TV. Teams had been sent to the Tioga County Administration building, which had murals of 12 townships in the county embedded in the brick facing of the building. Inside the entrance a map showing the county was posted. There was a list of 11 questions which could answered using the map and some arithmetic  to eliminate that number of townships. The trick was to correctly identify the remaining non-eliminated township and then drive to the place in that township shown on its mural, where the pitstop would be.

Jon and Jenna started first and had 2 done by the time Sadie and Ginalola and Hal and Matilda arrived. They agreed to collaborate. Later, Daniel and Jeff joined them also. That left Matt and Dave on their own as well as in last place. The other teams were conspiring to get them eliminated. Once Daniel and Jeff and Dave and Matt arrived and the collaborative group had only finished 9 eliminations, then there was only one small map and there were 10 individuals wanting to simultaneously attempting to use it. It was a situation certain to cause chaos and that did occur. There was pushing and shoving and nasty behavior and claims and counter-claims. However, I blame the producers. What did they expect? There should have been 5 maps. Anyway, teams were separated and then each team got 2 minute increments to use it.

First to go was Jon and Jenna. They were down to a choice between Waverly and Candor when Jenna stated that it was Waverly. They told the other 3 teams and left. Those teams saw them go in the wrong direction for the direct route to Waverly (17C West), but they did not know that Jon and Jenna were taking parellel 17 to Waverly, which is 20 miles(Note: I would have taken 17, a superhighway that is only 1 mile longer). Sadie and Ginalola, Hal and Matilda, and Daniel and Jeff nevertheless started on 17C west to Waverly. Dave and Matt narrowed it to Waverly, Candor and Newark Valley, but felt they had to take a risk and get going. They chose Candor, which was only 10 miles away. The 3 teams travelling together decided halfway to Waverly that they had been tricked by Jon and Jenna(they hadn't, but it would have been a mistake to continue to Waverly) and that revised math calculations indicated that they should have gone to Candor. They turned around and went there. Jon and Jenna went all the way to Waverly and discovered that it was not the pitstop. They turned around and went back to the Tioga County Admin Building to see where they had gone wrong. They decided it should have been Candor or someplace else and started for Candor.

The first team to arrive in Candor was obviously Dave and Matt. However, they asked 2 people at a grocery store about the old barn that they were trying to locate. Neither knew and they left just before a third person said "it's just a half mile down the road on Mill St." They were that close, but one had been pressuring the other that Candor was the wrong choice. They went on to Newark Valley, which is about 15 miles away by road(and 4 miles as the crow flies) to the Living History Museum. They found nothing there and decided to return to Candor. The group of 3 teams got into town. Two went one way. Hal and Matilda turned around and took the correct route and ended up first. Daniel and Jeff and Sadie and Ginalola were essentially tied for second. Jon and Jenna asked as they came into town and were directed straight to the Old Barn and finished fourth. Dave and Matt were last and their elimination from The Race 2 will certainly not be lamented by any of the other teams or by me.

I was impressed by the increased energy I saw from Hal and Matilda and by the spunk of Sadie and Ginalola. I still think Jon and Jenna are the classiest team even though they are now in last place.

TARAsia Fan:
I've been downloading S2 for later viewing. I did see the premiere episode and I'm impressed how much the production improved from the first season. Having quickly scrolled past apskip's recaps of the other episodes (and I'm sure they're very thorough), I feel Dave and Matt are going to be really villains in the race. I was hoping for their elimination right from the get-go. I enjoyed the first season and the guys at Ithaca College should be proud of what they've done from what I've seen of S2.

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