Topic: TAR 15 Speculation on Spoilers

[puddin]

At least now we really know TAR 15 will be starting soon in Sept.. thanks zach!

At least now we really know TAR 15 will be starting soon in Sept.. thanks zach!

http://forum.realityfanforum.com/index.php/topic,18838.0.html

[mjriches2005]

Does it make another Asia centric leg??

It looks to me like they're going...

Tokyo 1
Japan 2 - unconfirmed
Bali
HCMC
Phnom Penh
Dubai?

At last. No India...

I think they might visit an another middle east country.  The only safe ones left besides UAE are Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan.  Hopefully we could see South Africa (Durban) Malawi, Uganda, or Rwanda later on the race!

[mjriches2005]

Just a speculation, what if Japan is only half of leg 1 and they visit another country for the other half of the leg.  The only other Amazing Race where they visited 2 countries on the first single leg was Season 1, to South Africa and Zambia!  Also it's possible they could take a bus from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh since I checked, it's a 6 1/2 hour ride including the border crossing and customs.  Taking a plane from Vietnam to Cambodia in one day is still possible as well.

[DavidJunior]

Does it make another Asia centric leg??

It looks to me like they're going...

Tokyo 1
Japan 2 - unconfirmed
Bali
HCMC
Phnom Penh
Dubai?

At last. No India...

I think they might visit an another middle east country.  The only safe ones left besides UAE are Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan.  Hopefully we could see South Africa (Durban) Malawi, Uganda, or Rwanda later on the race!

i may not have been paying quite close enough attention to the spoiler threads but, are we sure that Bali is a confirmed location?

i just remember losing them after the flights into and first task in tokyo, only to find them checking into the pitstop in HCMC...

it'd be cool if it was tho...

[georgiapeach]

Bali is by no means confirmed. I too think we have another location between Tokyo and HCMC, but where that is is not yet known, or even IF that is all together correct.

[Glamazon Racer]

Does it make another Asia centric leg??

It looks to me like they're going...

Tokyo 1
Japan 2 - unconfirmed
Bali
HCMC
Phnom Penh
Dubai?

At last. No India...

I think they might visit an another middle east country.  The only safe ones left besides UAE are Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan.  Hopefully we could see South Africa (Durban) Malawi, Uganda, or Rwanda later on the race!

Fifteen seasons and I'm still hoping TAR will go to Armenia. Could be possible from the UAE, plus maybe a leg in Turkey. Just speculating and hoping...

[mjriches2005]

Does it make another Asia centric leg??

It looks to me like they're going...

Tokyo 1
Japan 2 - unconfirmed
Bali
HCMC
Phnom Penh
Dubai?

At last. No India...

I think they might visit an another middle east country.  The only safe ones left besides UAE are Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan.  Hopefully we could see South Africa (Durban) Malawi, Uganda, or Rwanda later on the race!

Fifteen seasons and I'm still hoping TAR will go to Armenia. Could be possible from the UAE, plus maybe a leg in Turkey. Just speculating and hoping...

Armenia, not at the moment, they have problems; but Azerbaijan is safe!  Amazing Race needs to return to Italy and do a leg in Sardinia, Pisa, Genoa, Naples, Turin, Trieste, or Verona.  Bordeaux, Toulousse, and Lyons in France would be nice too, as well the tiny nation of Monaco!!!!

[DavidJunior]

Does it make another Asia centric leg??

It looks to me like they're going...

Tokyo 1
Japan 2 - unconfirmed
Bali
HCMC
Phnom Penh
Dubai?

At last. No India...

I think they might visit an another middle east country.  The only safe ones left besides UAE are Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan.  Hopefully we could see South Africa (Durban) Malawi, Uganda, or Rwanda later on the race!

Fifteen seasons and I'm still hoping TAR will go to Armenia. Could be possible from the UAE, plus maybe a leg in Turkey. Just speculating and hoping...

Armenia, not at the moment, they have problems; but Azerbaijan is safe!  Amazing Race needs to return to Italy and do a leg in Sardinia, Pisa, Genoa, Naples, Turin, Trieste, or Verona.  Bordeaux, Toulousse, and Lyons in France would be nice too, as well the tiny nation of Monaco!!!!

don't forget Marseilles

it's only been used as an intermediate city twice (both in season 1 [leg 3 and 4]), but no actual racing through the city as far as i can remember

[tarflyonthewall]

Wasn't sure where to post this, but: Is it possible that the presumably delayed race, combined with reports of excessive money given out for the Tokyo leg (taxis into the city, rather than public transport or rental cars), suggests that the first leg is a last-minute replacement for somewhere else? I can't see them giving out so much money so soon any other way, especially considering the last couple of seasons.

It's possible that the first leg could have been set up for Korea, which is cheaper but which is also quarantining entire flights with swine flu patients.

Thoughts?

[georgiapeach]

Wasn't sure where to post this, but: Is it possible that the presumably delayed race, combined with reports of excessive money given out for the Tokyo leg (taxis into the city, rather than public transport or rental cars), suggests that the first leg is a last-minute replacement for somewhere else? I can't see them giving out so much money so soon any other way, especially considering the last couple of seasons.

It's possible that the first leg could have been set up for Korea, which is cheaper but which is also quarantining entire flights with swine flu patients.

Thoughts?

We have no evidence that the race was delayed...we just weren't quite sure exactly which day they were leaving. So no, based on the info at hand, this all seems VERY well planned.

[Zack.]

So...speculation time! Inspired by Neobie's excellent analysis on 13.4, here are my thoughts on the missing leg (version 2):

Leg 2 presumably starts in the morning of Tuesday, 7/21 (teams arrive in Japan in the afternoon of the 19th, staggered departures set up for the 20th, leg ends in late morning/early afternoon of the 20th, and a 12 hour pit stop puts them leaving early on 7/21 - extended pitstops are not out of the question given what happened last season).

The teams need to be in HCMC on Thursday 7/23 for the sighting to work. Within this time, there needs to be a 12 hour pit stop. Because of this, I doubt that there is another leg in Tokyo - from what I can tell, a leg within a city can be finished in a short amount of time (Delhi 2 took a couple of hours, as did Budapest; Moscow 2 took a long time for certain teams but they were bunched partially and had a more difficult than average leg; Beijing took a while also, but not two days worth of time, even with a pit stop), and so they would either have to make difficult tasks for 11, have a lot of bunching, or extended pit stop(s) - none of which I would do.

A leg in Japan but not Tokyo might be a suitable option. There could easily be bunching in Tokyo before the teams have to travel out. Timing of course depends on the location and the method of transit; the bullet train is a short amount of time while buses are longer. A second leg in Japan could then "start" in the afternoon of 7/21 and finish in the afternoon evening of 7/21, which, of course, has the problem of an extra day. An interesting option would be the use of an overnight bus/train; TPTB could have a roadblock or Detour, then a bus ride or bus rides out to location X that night (location X being somewhere like Hiroshima or Nagasaki or Sapporo, somewhere far away) - teams would arrive on the morning of 7/22 to complete the leg, have a pit stop, and depart from the pit stop the evening of 7/22, just in time to fly out to HCMC the morning of the 23rd.

Overall, while I feel that an overnight bus ride is a good option, the best option is traveling to another country, and I'll figure out *what* country that could be next.

[retard boi]

I guess a leg in Israel is not really an option... 
we are one of the few countrys that actually bought the format and made our own race
we deserve at list one leg!!!!

[north09]

When it's safer I'm sure they would consider Isreal. Of course, I don't see why they wouldn't consider it with enough security when Israel has it's own version going on as you mentioned.

[redskevin88]

When it's safer I'm sure they would consider Isreal. Of course, I don't see why they wouldn't consider it with enough security when Israel has it's own version going on as you mentioned.

yes, but do you realize that in the israeli format only ben gurion was visited?

[Dånooky]

When it's safer I'm sure they would consider Isreal. Of course, I don't see why they wouldn't consider it with enough security when Israel has it's own version going on as you mentioned.

yes, but do you realize that in the israeli format only ben gurion was visited?

and also, going to Israel will forcibly ban the racers from going to some Middle East countries and vice versa

[Zack.]

After a bunch of research (I have no idea how you guys do this and still manage to do all the other things around here), here's what I came up with for leg 2.

Using simple geography, TPTB would probably wanted to stay along the China Sea/Eastern Pacific. I doubt they would go to China after spending three legs there last season, but then again I thought that about TAR 14 being in Russia and, what do you know, people are running near-naked in Siberia. That being said, here are some possible destinations for our teams. The time indicated is how long they have to run a leg, with a 12 hour pit stop already factored in (obviously extended pit stops would impact this greatly, as would hours of operation/transportation bunches).

From best to worst:
Seoul - 33h 50m for racing
Taipei - 31h 40m for racing
Manila - 30h 20m for racing
Hanoi - 28h 0m for racing*
Kuala Lumpur - 27h 45m for racing
Singapore - 26h 35m for racing
Vientiane, Laos - 26h 10m for racing
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei - 25h 55m for racing
Danang, Vietnam - 23 h 0 m for racing
Kuching, Malaysia - 21h 45 m for racing

Australia is possible, but it would be a very tight squeeze (we're talking 8 hours for 10 teams to complete a leg - possible, but hard if someone flies off the rails).

I like Vientiane and BSB as destinations; we typically have a new country in Asia each year (with the exception of TAR 14, which felt the need to have 6 legs in Asian countries previously visited, 5 of them in cities previously visited  ).

*Especially for peach - The timing for Hanoi assumes that teams enter and leave Hanoi via airplane. A second option has teams flying into Hanoi and taking a train all the way to HCMC. Nothing would be done in Hanoi, but it would be either an exercise in working the airport/rails or a way to bunch teams up after a difficult first leg. Luckily for teams, there are sleeper trains available every day. Whether TPTB is willing to spend the extra money or willing to not have teams suffer in the hard seats is a mystery. An example of this would be:

JL5135       1100 1435 NRT HAN
SE5 (train) 1900 410(+2) Hanoi HCMC

Thus, HCMC would be leg 2 and we'd have to go from there. While I like that option a lot, I think the best bet is either a second leg in Japan or a leg in the Philippines (since the long amount of racing time allows the teams to travel to different islands in the archipelago and back)).

[Glamazon Racer]

Does it make another Asia centric leg??

It looks to me like they're going...

Tokyo 1
Japan 2 - unconfirmed
Bali
HCMC
Phnom Penh
Dubai?

At last. No India...

I think they might visit an another middle east country.  The only safe ones left besides UAE are Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan.  Hopefully we could see South Africa (Durban) Malawi, Uganda, or Rwanda later on the race!

Fifteen seasons and I'm still hoping TAR will go to Armenia. Could be possible from the UAE, plus maybe a leg in Turkey. Just speculating and hoping...

Armenia, not at the moment, they have problems; but Azerbaijan is safe!  Amazing Race needs to return to Italy and do a leg in Sardinia, Pisa, Genoa, Naples, Turin, Trieste, or Verona.  Bordeaux, Toulousse, and Lyons in France would be nice too, as well the tiny nation of Monaco!!!!

Yeah, well I can keep hoping until TAR100! As long as we get at least two legs in Africa and at least two new countries, I'm happy.

[ImANewUser]

I feel so useless when it comes to these. OMG. I wanna help, but somehow I can't.
Well, thanks and kudos to all you TAR detectives.

Just wanna say that. On topic: Is it possible they finally go to Nairobi from Dubai and stay there for one leg?

[Neobie]

Nice, ZachAttack!

An interesting note from TAR 14: Phil was almost always a day ahead of the field, exceptions discussed below. We have the Tokyo leg ending on Monday 20 Jul, and the HCMC leg on Thursday 23 Jul. That gives us enough time for only one spare Phil day, ie...

Scenario 1
20 Jul: Tokyo finish. Phil goes to Leg 2.
21 Jul: Pit Stop release delayed. Spare Phil day to prepare Leg 2.
22 Jul: Leg 2 finish. Phil goes quickly to HCMC.
23 Jul: Phil films HCMC quickly, racing with the teams.

Scenario 2
20 Jul: Tokyo finish. Phil goes quickly to Leg 2.
21 Jul: Phil films Leg 2 quickly, racing with the teams. Phil then goes to HCMC.
22 Jul: Pit Stop release delayed. Spare Phil day to prepare HCMC.
23 Jul: HCMC finish.

We see the pattern continuing with the next two legs:
Phnom Penh, 24 Jul being Phil's free day, 25 Jul the actual racing day.
Dubai, 26 Jul being Phil's free day, 27 Jul the actual racing day.

The two exceptions in TAR 14 were Stechelberg to Vienna (~430 mil), where Phil took a production van; and Phuket to Bangkok (~420 mil), which are within the same country. Apart from Krasnoyarsk-Novosibirsk (~390 mil), which is a headache transport-wise, these are the two shortest legs in the season. I'm guessing Leg 2 is very accessible from either Tokyo or Ho Chi Minh City. And since Phil's in a bit of a rush trying to get to the Pit Stop in the morning for HCMC, I'm guessing he'd use the rest day there. Educated guess conclusion: Leg 2, Japan.

Comparisons:
Tokyo to Kyoto/Osaka (310 mil), Sapporo (490 mil), Seoul (780 mil)
HCMC to Da Nang (370 mil), Vientiane (560 mil), Hanoi (710 mil)


Appendix: TAR 14 simplified timeline
1 Nov: Phil Leg 1; 2 Nov: Racers Leg 1
3 Nov: Phil/Racers Leg 2
4 Nov: Phil Leg 3; 5 Nov: Racers Leg 3
6 Nov: Phil travels; 7 Nov: Phil Leg 4, racers travel; 8 Nov: Racers Leg 4
9 Nov: Phil Leg 5; 10 Nov: Racers Leg 5
11 Nov: Phil travels; 12 Nov: Phil Leg 6, racers travel; 13 Nov: Racers Leg 6
14 Nov: Phil Leg 7; 15 Nov: Racers Leg 7
16 Nov: Phil/Racers Leg 8
17 Nov: Phil Leg 9; 18 Nov: Racers Leg 9
19 Nov: Phil Leg 10; 20 Nov: Racers Leg 10
21 Nov: Phil/Racers Leg 11

[ImANewUser]

So based on that, the Hanoi option mentioned somewhere on the board sounds possible (although I prefer a visit to Haiphong - just noticed, most of the Vietnam places on TAR(A) start with an H - Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Hue, Ha Long Bay) or they went somewhere else in Honshu. (Kyoto, Nagoya - not sure if this is in Honshu - or Osaka)

[walkingpneumonia]

When it's safer I'm sure they would consider Isreal. Of course, I don't see why they wouldn't consider it with enough security when Israel has it's own version going on as you mentioned.

yes, but do you realize that in the israeli format only ben gurion was visited?

and also, going to Israel will forcibly ban the racers from going to some Middle East countries and vice versa

Visiting Israel does not stop you from visiting countries that have not signed a peace treaty with Israel as long as you don't get your passport stamped...

... There your luggage and person may be searched, and you will receive an entry stamp. Although this stamp does not present a problem when entering Jordan or Egypt, if you wish to visit Syria, Lebanon or any Arab country which has not signed a peace treaty with Israel, you should explicitly ask to get your Israeli entry and exit stamps on separate pieces of paper, not in your passport. Likewise, you should ask the Jordanian authorities to stamp your exit and entry from any crossing point connecting Jordan with the occupied West Bank or Israel on a separate sheet of paper as well.

[Zack.]

So based on that, the Hanoi option mentioned somewhere on the board sounds possible (although I prefer a visit to Haiphong - just noticed, most of the Vietnam places on TAR(A) start with an H - Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Hue, Ha Long Bay) or they went somewhere else in Honshu. (Kyoto, Nagoya - not sure if this is in Honshu - or Osaka)

Nagoya is in Honshu 

If it were in Japan, I'd say it would have to be a sizable distance from Tokyo; a long transport ride (say, an overnight bus) gives Phil time to film stand-ups and fly out to Vietnam ahead of the racers.

Would this also mean that our Phil sighting in Phnom Penh is a day ahead of the teams? Since he was at the Foreign Correspondents Club doing something leisurely (I assume); with teams breathing down his neck I doubt he would have time to stop for a drink (unless the Pit Stop was there).

[spanishtarfan]

there has been a Phil sighting? I missed it!! who saw him? where is the post? 

[DrRox]

The two exceptions in TAR 14 were Stechelberg to Vienna (~430 mil),

Neobie,

Wasn't it
1) Stechelberg to Zurich by taxi
2) Zurich to Munich by air
3) Munich to Salzberg by car

[walkingpneumonia]

Thinking about the first leg...
Perhaps the task at the starting line was designed to delay the teams and give Phil a head start getting to Tokyo so he could do stand-ups before the teams arrive?

I don't believe Chateau saw Phil at LAX - so maybe he left on Korean Air KE 2 at 11:40 and the teams were held back long enough so they could only get AA 169 at 12:45 or UA 891 at 13:13.

Not sure if the timing works for this.