as for those wondering if the weavers actually completed the map, the additional challenge had them doing something with the maps, and Phil said "The maps you completed in the last challenge"

Nice to actually be happy with TAR and Survivor winners in one week. I don't think any season TAR sucked. I'm glad they are going back to two people, but I enjoyed this season.

Ratings are in....

First hour: 6.8/10
Second hour: 7.3/11

Compared to the Amazing Race 7 finale: 9.6/15

I'm sure the producers are happy to return to the normal format next race.

I was just hoping the whiny ass Weavers would have just given up.

They usually have tight security at the finish line so that it's only the cast and crew that are present that know the outcome.

Does anyone know if the runner-up teams get cash prizes too? You know, like on Survivor where the 2nd place person gets $100,000 and so on?

About the shoe challenge - I just saw an interview with the Bransens and they said it only took them about five minutes. The shoe they had was a small size and one of the daughters was able to scope out the women with small feet pretty quickly.

LB: There are three other siblings that couldn't take part, all boys. The wife of one was expecting a baby around that time. Another couldn't get out of work and the youngest, still in high school had summer school.

Thanks for the link to the story.

During the 7:00 am ET to 8:00 am ET hour, my CBS station (WIVB-Channel 4-Buffalo, NY) runs their own segments interweaven with the CBS morning show and they wounded up not showing the segment with the three teams being interviewed. That surprise me since for one, Nick Linz works in Buffalo, NY and two, the race finished in nearby Lewiston, NY. You would think because of that, they would have shown the segment. They did have a quick 30 second piece mentioning both of those above but it came out like oh btw, we had a "local" person win a million dollars last night. Ugh! They of course did show the check presentation during the 8:00 am ET to 9:00 am ET hour since whole CBS Morning show airs with just a local news/sports/weather segment at the bottom of the hour.

So yes, the Linz's did have a slight advantage in the Toronto-Queeston-Lewiston part of the leg even if it wasn't really mentioned. I think Nick said he knew where it is "the watercraft place" but we still saw them asking for directions. (LOL, both Linzs/Bransens getting directions from that same jogger.) So you could say we finally had a team with a "hometown" advantage in the last leg winning the race.

Man, that would have been awesome running the last leg of the race. Mainly because, well speaking of an advantage, I've been to Montreal (twice-I knew right away they were going to the wrong arena for the curling. Even been to the American exhibit-they went to.) Toronto (I get there at least twice per year. I have to use two hands to count the number of times I've been on the CN Tower.) and well doh, since I live near there-numerous times to Qweenston, Can/Lewiston, NY. (Although the last one, the only advantage would have been knowing where the watercraft place was without asking for directions-which I did know where it was right away after seeing the clips in last weeks preview.) Hell, after we won the million, all the teams (yes, the Weavers too!) would have been invited over to my Aunts house a few miles down the road for a feast - of course all paid for by the lovely folks at CBS. LOL!

Knew where/have been to basically all the places mentioned last night and "done" some of the detours/roadblocks-only ones that eluded me were the trapeeze place and the shoe museum. (The shoe detour wouldn't have been done by us-even if it only took the Bransens five minutes as someone said-as we are all boat lovers in the family so that part of the detour would have been up our alley. I have a slight fear of heights so like the trapeeze one, I wouldn't have done the actually climbing to get the clue.) And I've done map puzzles, just not HUGE ones like that! (Not sure if I would have volunteered to do that-not someone who does stuff well under pressure. So basically I would have been useless last night! LOL! except for...see next paragraph.)

I've done curling before and yes, if you never been on ice before or not alot-they make you wear a helmet-it was done for safety measures. As a curling nut, I would have been so pump for that detour. There would have been no way we would have thought of doing the logs! (Heck, if I was even outvoted and my teammates went and did the logs-I would have said screw them and went and down the curling on my own!)

I'll have to get the exact date they were in Toronto, but it seems I missed them by a few days as I was there Aug 6-7 for the second/third games of the Yankees-Blue Jays series.

Well I think thats it for now. If I find any local articles since the race finished here, I'll post the links!

LB...

Either that or had the times of departure spaced out like at the very least fifteen minutes apart. (Similar to the departure times in previous legs of the race.) The teams would have known when they got the clue that there were three different times - fifteen minutes apart - and that might have given them enough motivation to look for a better time. (Linz's who got their ticket first but wounded up second in departure time to the Bransens might have kept looking for the earlier time.) So with the departure times being only five minutes apart-and it taking them so long to find the tickets-the goal was just finding any ticket and not getting the first departure time.

Because of the departure times being five minutes apart, the Linzs got sorta screwed for finding theirs first (although I assume they enjoyed the rest!) as the five minutes between them and the Weavers weren't enough as the Weavers caught up to them after landing on the airport. The fifteen minute difference might have been enough for all the teams not to be bunched up at the CN Tower-thus perhaps giving one team an advantage when it came to the shoe/sailing detour. We probably would have still had the close finish anyway.

LB...

Glad to see the Linz family win. They played loose the whole way and seemed to enjoy the ride. I actually enjoyed this season, but I've always looked at the race as an international event, and look forward to the traveling next season. And the Weavers - let's hope that their 3rd place finish doesn't shake their faith, and that God plans some full length pants in their future.

One more time...














Go Black family!

Stupid editing.

When they were showing the Linz's after Landing in Minneapolis from Billings, they actually cut to a clip from the Billing's airport, and then showed a clip from the Minneapolis airport.

So between this and the other thing I pointed out (when talking about the pitstop in Absarokee, they were showing Billings), I wonder how much throughout the whole race they are misleading us about the world. Someone else pointed out earlier about the lake they went to in Utah being far away from where they showed it on the map.

I thought I saw the Linz miss The Rhode Island Piece of the puzzle, what happened with that?

Good finish to a mediocre season.

When they were in the boats at Niagra Falls, the teams were in the front row of the
boat and there were about 4 people in the back row of the boat. Did anyone hear
who those people were or recognize them replaying it back on Tivo? It looked to me
like it could have been families so I'm wondering if it was some of the other racers?
It didn't appear to me that they were a camera crew.

Now that the season is done: I thought we were promised more "AR All-Star" appearances? Isn't that what Kevin & Drew claimed a few weeks ago?

Yeah, I notoced that. I was thinking it might be friends or family of the people who ran the boats and wanted to be on TV.

He thought it was missing at first, but he quickly found it on the platform.

I also felt cheated at not seeing the Weavers doing the map puzzle. When they revealed the task, I said "Finally a Road Block that Rolly can't do!"

It got kind of ridiculous the way they had him do everything. "Rolly, you go walk in the shark tank. Rolly, you feed the velociraptors."

When they were showing all the boring interviews in the end with the Linzes and the Bransens's, I was like "Who cares? I wanna see the Weavers try and do that puzzle." When they showed the close-up of the clue card that said only one person may do the task, I thought that one of the teams were going to go running up and do it together.

I agree with the sentiment that it was a good finale for a terrible season. I wish the rest of the season had been as fast paced and had theinteresting tasks and locales this one did (with the exception of the truck warehouse.)

I hated the way the Weavers were bitching in the stadium that it was not "fair". Ugh.
Why were all the teams all together during that task? Was there a rule they had to be within 5 feet of each other or something? It seemed like it would have been smarter to split up the sections and look that way. Some of the teams split up more but the dumb Weavers were all looking in a big group.

Not only that, but the part where Mama Weaver is sleeping and Rolly wanted to keep looking? Is there also a reason that the kids couldn't look while Mom slept?

There must be a stick-together rule. For the same reason in that bonus cbs.com challenge, the whole team had to run to the boxes together and couldn't leave someone behind to work on the map.

Also probably because of things like mom sleeping. I mean, no part of the team should rest without the whole team resting. You can't let the drivers sleep during the task while the task runners sleep in the car. Why? I don't know...

I'd be interested in seeing a no-holds-barred race. No forced bunch ups or unnecessary rules. All the teams start in the same spot and just race until the end. You can sleep when and where you want. You can get there however you want within your per-leg budget. The non-sleeping thing may be an insurance/safety concern so that sleepy drivers don't kill themselves or others. Of course that would be a production nightmare trying to organize all the local challenges never knowing what day the next team will show up

^ You're trying to kill Phil, aren't you?

There is a rule. I think it's something like 30'. Racers have mentioned it in other forums.

I have to say that it was too bad Rolly was on the Weaver team. He was a cool kid who worked his ass off and it's a shame his mom and sisters were such crazy, lazy, christian wackos.

Even though the bunch ups are usually not fair, they are created to keep the drama in the race. If a team gets 3 or 4 days ahead of the other teams, then where is the drama in that?

It's like watching an NBA game, where one team is ahead by 30 points in the 4th quarter. There is nothing really exciting to watch at that point.

Think of the last challenge, the map building one. I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation of who was going to finish the map first. If one team had had even a 10 minute lead on the other, there would have been no drama at the end.

As it was, the ending challenge spiced up an otherwise unchallenging Amazing Race.

Chris

I live near Minneapolis, and when they said the Northwest flight arrived in Minneapolis and showed that clip, not only was it not a Northwest flight, but I started wondering if I had somehow missed a Krakatoa-like seismic event resulting in a new mountain range.

It was a good thing the Weavers stuck together because one of the girls walked passed the clue that Rolly eventually spotted.
Anyway, they did have a no-holds barred race with almost no rules or time frames. It was called "Lost" on NBC and it sucked.

To be fair there were some pretty extenuating circumstances. The concept sounded good, but I never was able to see it before it was quickly gone.