Topic: Amazing Race Questions

[Plaidmoon]

I have to believe you can't use the Express Pass on a Fast Forward. It seems like bad TV to me to have a team get a route info, head to the FF, use the EP and arrive at the Pit Stop 20 minutes into the show and hours ahead of the other teams. Then you just have the anti-climax of waiting to see who finished second. You still get to wait and see who gets eliminated though.

[Coutzy]

I have to believe you can't use the Express Pass on a Fast Forward. It seems like bad TV to me to have a team get a route info, head to the FF, use the EP and arrive at the Pit Stop 20 minutes into the show and hours ahead of the other teams. Then you just have the anti-climax of waiting to see who finished second. You still get to wait and see who gets eliminated though.

^^ Seconded. If you allow the use of an Express Pass on a Fast Forward, it makes opening up a 12 hours+ lead way too possible, something the producers have been very keen to avoid ever since season 1.

[JordanJones123]

Okay got quite a few questions, some rff related and some just plain old race related.

1. What is the biggest lead a team has ever had over the rest of the field? A.K.A. What is the biggest gap between 1st and 2nd ever?

2. How many times have production stepped in to stop teams getting ahead?

3. How many legs/tasks, if any, have producers cancelled because of too many potential spoilers?

4. Which leg, and in which season, took the shortest amount of time to complete? (and by who?)

5. Which leg, and in which season, took the longest amount of time to complete? (and by who?)

6. What was the most expensive leg to produce?

7. How long has the RFF been on the back of TAR for? Since which season?


Lots of questions, I know, but i'm curious. I will be happy if you guys could answer 1 of all of the questions, just to clarify TAR for me! 

[apskip]

JordanJones123:

1.a. I will first cite you the finale of AR1, where Rob/Brennan and Frank/Margarita were both about 23.5 hours ahead of third-place Joe/Bill due to the legs after Krabi giving them first 5 hour and then 24 hour leads.
   b. In AR11 due to the Hajj, the scarcity of flights from Maputo to DarEsSalaam gave Charla/Mirna a 3 hour lead departing and then an additional 3 hours due to 3 other teams flying to Johannesburg and then DES, for a total of about 6 hours.
   c. So that makes the answer to your question AR5, where the arrival of Colin/Christie was 7 1/4 hours ahead of 3 other teams at the Cairo pit stop.   

2. I guess there were other instances where production stopped teams, but I cannot cite any evidence for them except for the declaration of an AR11 storm making the Zanzibar Channel impassable for Mirna/Charla until winds abated (and other teams caught up a bit).

I have no knowledge on your #3 through #7, so you cannot get those answers from me.

[Alenaveda]

I don't know if it's the longest one, by I guess I remember Nat and Kat talking about the Leg 8 in Oman, and that they spend almost 18 hours to complete it; and they weren't the last team to reach the PitStop, so probably Gary and Mallory, who were the last and eliminated team of that leg, should take a little more amount of time to do it.

[apskip]

Alanevada,

AR11, ep. 6 from Maputo to Zanzibar Island was more than 2 days as a result of Hajj-related disruption of flight space availability. I doubt that any other leg will beat that one.

[theschnauzers]

3. How many legs/tasks, if any, have producers cancelled because of too many potential spoilers?

I'm not aware of any complete legs being cancelled, but the samba task in Rio in TAR 2 was relocated because of crowds that had gathered at the original location; I'm not aware of any other legs being changed because of spoilers. There have been a few legs or tasks that were changed due to other causes, though.

As to how long RFF has been involved, I'm not sure, but the first Race I can recall hearing of a spoiler during filming was, IIRC, TAR 6 in Germany at a train station spotted by a Racer from an earlier season. Season 7 was almost en epidemic in comparison because of Survivor Rob and Amber's casting in that season, and their being known in many of the places visited. These were pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter, and in the early days of live blogs with photos taken from cellphones.

[Zack.]

Alanevada,

AR11, ep. 6 from Maputo to Zanzibar Island was more than 2 days as a result of Hajj-related disruption of flight space availability. I doubt that any other leg will beat that one.

TAR 5 going from Argentina to Russia, maybe? Everyone started before dawn on day one, then took a 20 hour bus ride to BA, then took flights that got them to St. Petersburg in the afternoon and evening of day three.

4. Which leg, and in which season, took the shortest amount of time to complete? (and by who?)

If Pit Stop/Start times are to be believed, I think Nick/Starr completed the second Delhi leg in TAR 13 in a little over an hour (though this was simply a RB - Detour - Pit Stop type of leg without any sort of bunching or long-distance transport).

[theschnauzers]

Longest leg (pit stop to pit stop) might in fact be TAR 9's leg from Argentina to Russia to Germany. Also the longest in mileage as well.

[mds1978]

I have a few answers:

2) Season 4, Leg 11- Jon and Al tried to get on the same flight as the other teams, but their Race-provided credit card was not accepted by the airline due to computer problems, and they were unable to make that flight. As this was an airline issue that production could not control, production held up the other 3 teams when they arrived in Australia to make up for the time lost in resolving the card issue, and thus appearing to have all teams equally bunched out of the airport. (They got elim'd anyway that leg, so oh well)

I'd also argue that production unofficially steps in to stop teams getting ahead every time there's an hours of operation bunching point midway through a leg, but that's more of an opinion than a fact.

5) While it may not officially be the longest leg on record, as far as the longest task to complete, that would probably be Season 6, Leg 3, by Lena & Kristy, who spent between 8-10 hours trying to finish the hayroll RB and probably would have gone on longer had Phil not shown up to eliminate them before they could finish.

7) I don't know the history of RFF's spoilage, but one could argue the first time RFF's spoilers became infamous was when it leaked the complete boot list for TAR: All-Stars (Season 11), which was 100% accurate.

[Best Loser]

1. What is the biggest lead a team has ever had over the rest of the field? A.K.A. What is the biggest gap between 1st and 2nd ever?

How big was the lead that Frank & Margarita got after they won the Fast Forward? I thought I read something that said that they had the biggest lead.

[apskip]

Yes, that's right, Best Loser. It was 10 hours 47 minutes at the Taj Mahal Hotel.

[AmazingRace]

7) I don't know the history of RFF's spoilage, but one could argue the first time RFF's spoilers became infamous was when it leaked the complete boot list for TAR: All-Stars (Season 11), which was 100% accurate.

I'm glad I didn't see those spoilers, or else half the excitement would have been gone. 

[DrRox]

Longest leg (pit stop to pit stop) might in fact be TAR 9's leg from Argentina to Russia to Germany. Also the longest in mileage as well.

Okay...so I am bored today.........

TAR5 Leg 4 was from San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina to Pushkin, Russia. Pushkin is a surburb of St Petersburg.

TAR9 Leg 3 was from Brotas, Brasil to Moscow to Munich. But it might still be the longest (see TAR2 Leg 3 below).

I also always felt that TAR1 Leg 7 Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy to Agra, India was a heck of a long leg. TAR11 Leg9 was a heck of a long one too.......Kraków, Poland to Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia

TAR2 Leg3 Foz do Iguaçu, Brasil to Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa isnt all that far apart gegraphically, but all but one team had to fly from Sao Paulo, to Europe, then to Capetown. The Galloping Grannies had to fly from Sao Paulo to NYC to London to Capetown....that is a very long haul.

[Kacper]

I don't know if anybody asked this before but how do they pick the greeters for each leg?

[theschnauzers]

Casting calls or help from local agencies or organizations; it all depends on what choices are available, and what TPTB consider fitting for a particular locale.

[apskip]

Dr. Rox,

I didn't have any time to spare, but since this geography question intrigued me I researched int anyway. As I am sure you are aware one has to be careful to use one consistent source for the distance calculations. I have chosen to use www.worldatlas.com. I have also assumed that with very long distance the off-the-shortest path situations due to using connecting airports are minimized (except for one special case).

The results are:
AR1 Bologna to Agra 3280 statute miles (note - I believe that World Atlas is always using them; others may use air miles (which are 15% longer)

AR2 Iguacu Falls to Europe (most southernmost I can fly flights to South Africa is Paris) 6143 + Paris to Capetown 6584 = 12,527 statute miles 

AR5 San Carlos de Bariloche (by bus) 856 + Buenos Aires to Moscow 8526 miles = 9382 miles

AR9 Sao Paulo to Moscow 7289 miles

AR11 Krakow to Frankfurt 500 miles + Frankfurt to Kuala Lumpur 6193 miles + Kuala Lumpur to Sepang = 6762 miles

The clear winner is AR2. I checked out shorter direct flights and they exist now (and probably did then) from either GRU or EZE to Johannesburg, but I can only assume that those flights were not available to the teams (maybe full of Amazing Race 2 staff). If they had, this distance would have been cut to either 5387 miles from Sao Paulo or 5801 miles from Buenos Aires.

[DrRox]

Great research, apskip

What are air miles??? The only time I have ever seen that term was in connection to airline loyalty programs.......Statute mile is better known as land mile.....5280ft.....Ships and airplanes use nautical miles for navigation...6,046 feet.

TAR1......I think you inadvertenly transposed the numbers for Bologna to Agra....World Atlas gives me 3820 sm.

TAR5 was from Bariloche to St Petersburg, not Moscow....so that would be 856 for the bus ride to BsAs and 8171 for the flight BsAs to St Petersburg = 9027 sm

TAR9 Brotas to Moscow to Munich.....there was no pit stop in Moscow. When teams stepped on the mat next to St Basil's in Red Square....Phil gave them clue to fly to Stuttgart, get car and drive to Munich......pit stop was in Munich.......so Brotas to GRU 165 sm + Sao Paulo to Moscow 7289sm + Moscow to Munich 1211 sm = 8635sm

The Galloping Grannies in TAR2.......Foz de Iguazu to Capetown---   Foz to NYC 4662 sm + NYC to London 3503sm + London to Capetown 5913sm = 14, 088 sm............has to be the longest flight sequeence in TAR history!!!!

Thanks for the research, apskip.

[apskip]

Air miles are of course nautical miles. I think it was applied before the advent of frequent flyer programs, but it does save the airlines 15% versus statute miles.

[JordanJones123]

Thanks for all the answers!!!

Got to be the best thread on the TAR discussion page, loving all the insight im getting. Thanks again 

[georgiapeach]

^^Go for it! That would be a nice project for you...

[JordanJones123]

^^Go for it! That would be a nice project for you...

I know of only 3.

S5 Istanbul moved to Dubai
S8 Belize leg cancelled due to hurricane Emily
S19 Laos leg cancelled.

Why were the S5 and S19 legs moved?

[theschnauzers]

If I remember correctly, there had been some sort of unrest or terror attack in Instabul shortly before season five was filmed, and as to TAR 19, Phil only said that they had to unexpectedly replan the two legs filmed in Phuket from their original location on less than 24 hours' notice. I don't think any other details ever surfaced.

[redwings8831]

If I remember correctly, there had been some sort of unrest or terror attack in Instabul shortly before season five was filmed, and as to TAR 19, Phil only said that they had to unexpectedly replan the two legs filmed in Phuket from their original location on less than 24 hours' notice. I don't think any other details ever surfaced.

There was two separate bombing (five days apart) in Istanbul in November of 2003 and TAR 5 filmed late January and February of 2004

[Tarfan37]

^^Go for it! That would be a nice project for you...

I know of only 3.

S5 Istanbul moved to Dubai
S8 Belize leg cancelled due to hurricane Emily
S19 Laos leg cancelled.

Wasnt ther one in s11 with tanzania?