Amazing Race 14

Episode Twelve:
This is How You Loose a Million Dollars!

As he usually does, Phil begins the final leg of the Race with a review that begins at the starting line in Los Angeles, California, and includes a scene with all of the previously eliminated eight teams before getting to the three remaining teams and telling us that one of these teams will win the $1,000,000 prize and the Amazing Race.

Phil goes on to remind us the teams are in Beijing at the Bird’s Nest stadium, which was the tenth and final pit stop on a race around the world. We learn that Tammy and Victor arrived first at 9:15 AM, and therefore depart at 9:15 PM; Margie and Luke depart at 11:24 PM; and the last team, Jaime and Cara depart at 2:04 AM.

Route Info: Shoreline Access 118, Maui, Hawaii

As Tammy and Victor open the clue, Victor, reading the clue says: “Fly to your final destination city, Maui, Hawaii…”

I don’t think that Victor misread the clue, but to the best of my knowledge there is no Maui city. According to Wikipedia, Maui is the “second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands…and is the 17^th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest island in Maui County. Three other islands, Lāna’i, Kaho’olawe, and Moloka’i, also belong to Maui County. Together, the four islands are known as Maui Nui.” The Visit Maui Web site appears to have a good history of the island.

The flights from Beijing to Maui become the last bottleneck on the Race, as all the teams have to wait until morning to catch the first flight on their way to Maui. This is also another case of the producers taking great liberties as they draw a line from Beijing to Maui, saying teams are now on their way to Maui, which is technically correct, but actually it is more complicated and convoluted than that simple graphic implies. And it is important to understand the route to understand just how tired the teams are as the begin the actual last leg upon landing in Maui.

Based on information given during the episode, the teams left Beijing at about 9:30 AM, and it took 18 hours to get from Beijing to Maui. Based on this information it looks like they actually flew first to Tokyo Japan, then to Honolulu Hawaii, and finally onto Kahului, Maui.

Air China flight 5702 leaves Beijing (PEK) at 9:25 AM, arriving in Tokyo (NRT) at 1:55 PM. This flight takes 3:30 and covers 1,313 miles.

United Airlines flight 7024 leaves Tokyo (NRT) at 7:25 PM arriving in Honolulu Hawaii (HNL) at 7:32 AM. This flight covers 3,831 miles in 7:07.

Finally, Hawaiian Airlines flight 520 leaves Honolulu (HNL) at 9:40 AM arriving at Kahului, Maui (OGG) at 10:17 AM. This final flight is 101 miles and takes 37 minutes. The total distance flown is 5,245 miles and the actual flying time is 11:14; while the duration, including connections is 18:52.

Oh, the total cost per passenger: $1,124.70. This map shows the likely flight route (with a bit of a zig assuming commercial flights skirt North Korea).

View AR_14_32_Beijing_Maui in a larger map

So where is ‘Shoreline Access 118’'? According to the County of Maui Web site’s, Maui Shoreline Atlas, Inventory of Shoreline Access Points, it is listed in the Kihei-Makeni inventory as number 42, ‘Keokea Beach Hmstds’.

We hear one of the cheerleaders tell their cab driver they have to go to Kihei, so we this makes it seem as if the beach is in fact near Kihei.

This map shows a possible route from the airport to an estimate of the location of the first beach, at Shoreline Access 118. The distance is approximately 15 miles.

View AR_14_33_Maui_Airport_Keokea_Beach in a larger map

When the teams arrive at the beach, they have to prepare a pig for a traditional Hawaiian Luau, by seasoning it with ‘Island’ flavoring, carrying the 145 pound pig 200 yards to the pit, and using a reference pig pit, bury their pig correctly in a roasting pit. For the complete Amazing Race experience here are the instructions courtesy of esortment.com.

Two teams add the additional step of dragging the pig through the sand and salt water of the surf, as Margie and Luke are the only team that is able to put the pole with the pig on their shoulders. This also means that although they started last, they were the first team to arrive at the roasting pits and complete the preparation of their pig.

Hopefully the producers actually cooked the pigs and donated the food to the locals rather than wasting all that meat.

Route Info: McGregor Point

When the teams successfully complete the luau preparations, they are told to leave their swimsuits on and head for the beach at McGregor Point. Once there they will take a one mile ride on a Honda jet ski to a marked buoy field. There is a small sign near the highway that says ‘Beach at McGregor Point’ with a small Race flag attached in one corner.

The McGregor Point area is interesting, but there appear to be three locations with this name: first a lighthouse, second a roadside turnoff for whale watching and finally a beach. This area of Maui is apparently one of the best free whale watching sites on Maui. Some historical information about McGregor is available at this Lighthouse Friend's Web site.

This map estimates the location of the beach, which is described as being approximately at mile post eight from Lahaina. It shows one mile in either direction, but based on the satellite view, it appears they headed southeast from the beach on the Jet ski.

View AR_14_34_Keokea_Beach_McGregor_Point in a larger map

Route Info: Buoy Field

Once the teams reach the buoy field they have to search among 100 buoys to find their next clue (shades of unrolling hay bales, but this doesn't appear to take to long).

Route Info: Surfboard Fence

Once they find a buoy with the next clue, teams have to return to the beach, and race along the Hana highway, and find the Maui Surfboard Fence at Kaohli Farms Beach, where their next clue awaits. This gives the contestants the real Maui experience of backtracking on roads they have already driven.

Okay, if you visited the last link, the Pulibros readily admit that a Texas Web site seems like the last place to get information about a surf board fence in Hawaii, but the Maui Surfboard Fence Web site appears to be gone.

It is about 24 miles from the beach to the Surfboard Fence site, and takes the teams back past the airport. Given traffic in Maui this could have easily taken an hour or more.

Roadblock: Surfboard Fence

Fans of the Race know that since the episode of the Amazing Race that ended at Red Rocks in Colorado, the last pit stop requires knowledge of the entire race, such as finding the flag of each country visited, or finding pictures representing places visited along the route.

Phil tells us that for this Roadblock, one person has to overcome three weeks worth of physical and mental fatigue and remember everything they have done on the Race. They have to search through a pile of more than 300 surfboards, to find 11 that have pictures representing places along the Race (including route info, detours, roadblocks or pit stops). Most of the surfboards (267) have incorrect pictures on them. When the team member has the correct 11 boards, they must make their own fence by standing the surfboards up in the correct order.

Margie and Luke arrive first and Luke gets off to a quick start on building his surfboard fence. He has already found eight boards when Victor and Tammy arrive.

Leg 1: Church of San Antonio
Leg 2:
Leg 3: Romanian Gymnastics
Leg 4: Krasnoyarsk Dam (10 Ruble Note)
Leg 5: Novosibirsk Lada (car)
Leg 6: Jaipur Pit Stop (Nose Flutes)
Leg 7: Phuket Zoo (Esso the Tiger)
Leg 8: Bangkok Long boats
Leg 9: Guilin Cormorant
Leg 10:
Leg 11:

Then Luke finds the surfboard for the second leg.

Leg 1: Church of San Antonio
Leg 2: Ruhpolding Gondola
Leg 3: Romanian Gymnastics
Leg 4: Krasnoyarsk Dam (10 Ruble Note)
Leg 5: Novosibirsk Lada (car)
Leg 6: Jaipur Pit Stop (Nose Flutes)
Leg 7: Phuket Zoo (Esso the Tiger)
Leg 8: Bangkok Long boats
Leg 9: Guilin Cormorant
Leg 10:
Leg 11:

Then Luke begins to pick incorrect boards and starts to get frustrated with the task. He appears to just start picking random surfboards while Victor finds the surfboard for the tenth leg, and then the surfboard for the last leg.

Jaime and Cara finally arrive, having overcome a lost cab driver, a cab dispatcher who refused to be ‘their personal concierge’, calling the police for directions (hopefully on a non-emergency line), and stopping for gas. So they really can make a claim on the worst cab picking luck on this Race, and possibily of all races to date.

When Jaime starts the task Luke and Victor are both almost done. Although Jaime complains that the images on the surfboards don't make sense, once she finds the first surfboard something appears to click and she figures it out. Luke continues to let his frustration slow him to a crawl. Victor is the first to build a complete fence.

Victor and Tammy leave the Roadblock first with the final clue, and eventually Luke and Jaime help each other (in previous Races, screens prohibited such collaboration). But Luke shows Jaime the board for the first leg, which she acknowledges she would not have gotten, and then Jaime completes her fence and then turns each of her boards so that Luke can see them.

Jaime and Cara leave as Luke begins to look for the last two boards he needs.

Route Info: Travel to the King Kamehameha Golf Course

So it is Victor and Tammy who head out from the Surfboard Fence to the King Kamehameha Golf Course. Which is a good excuse for a little background on King Kamehameha (other than it also being the name of the club on Oahu where Magnum PI hung out). The Wikipedia entry is here, and a Hawaiian Roots genealogy Web site offers a look at the other Kamehameha kings and Hawaiian monarchy.

The exact location of the golf course is a bit confusing, because the same address is used for two golf courses. The first is the Kahili Golf Course which is at 2500 Honoapiilani Highway. The second is the King Kamehameha Golf Course, which uses the same address. I think that one course is to the south (Kahili), and the other (Kamemhameha) to the north.

So it is backtracking again, and although only about 18 miles, likely an hour trip with island traffic.

View AR_14_36_Surfboard_Fence_Golf_Course in a larger map

So Victor and Tammy make it to the finish line mat first, and Phil tells them: “Three continents, nine countries, 40,000 miles, Tammy and Victor you are the winners of the Amazing Race, you have won $1,000,000.”

Jaime and Cara are team number two (quite a finish considering how far behind they were when they got to the roadblock); and Margie and Luke are team number three, and Luke tells his mother that he appreciates that Margie is his mother and signs for him.

Still to Come...

The Puli Brothers review of this edition of the Race, and some thoughts on racers and the race in general.

The Puli Brother's Web Site