THE TEAMS
Teams include Margie and Luke, a mother and
deaf son, lawyer siblings Tammy and Victor,
brothers and stuntmen Michael and Mark, gay
father and son Mel and Mike, dating couple
Amanda and Kris, midwestern married couple
Brad and Victoria, former NFL cheerleaders
Jaime and Cara, sisters Kisha and
Jen, married hillfolk Steve and
Linda, flight attendants Christie and
Jodi and the requisite dating couple on the brink
of disaster, Preston and Jennifer.
THE RACE
The starting point for this season is Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base. Phil
briefs the teams, and lets them know that eight of the Pit
Stops will be eliminations, which leaves three episodes
and the finale as non-elimination legs.
LOCARNO, SWITZERLAND
The first clue directs the racers to Locarno,
Switzerland. Teams must take either a Lufthansa
flight to Zurich
or an Air France flight to Milan. Then,
teams must catch trains to Locarno. Once in Locarno, they
proceed on foot to the Church of San Antonio and
sign the register to claim their morning departure times.
Teams spend the night camping out in a very rustic looking
park. Steve takes the rest period as an opportunity to
browbeat his wife Linda about being slow, making her cry.
Way to start the race, jerk!
ROADBLOCK
In the morning, the racers return to the church and
receive a photograph directing them to their next
destination: Verzasca
Dam. One of the tallest dams in the world, one
member of each team will have to bungee jump 70
stories from the rim. Almost all of the racers looked a
little sick before jumping, and we would, too, that's 700
feet down!
KLEINE RUGEN WIESE
Teams must take the train to Interlaken and find Kleine
Rugen Wiese. There, teams use traditional antique cheese
racks, climb to the top of a hill to retrieve fifty pound
wheels of cheese, transport them down the hill and stack
them into a neat 200 pound pile. Sounds easy, right? Well,
the hill is very steep and muddy, and the cheese racks
appear to have the strength of balsa wood. Racks are
breaking all over the place and large wheels of cheese are
rolling downhill like runaway trains. It's a cheese
calamity! Tempers are flaring, cheese is flying and mud is
everywhere. Naturally, Steve is losing it all over Linda,
who is, of course, crying. Look, Linda, boo-hoo all you
want, just keep the cheese moving!
THE PIT STOP
Teams head to the town of Stechelberg, where they must
listen for yodelers who will help lead them to the finish
mat. In a thrilling first place finish, it's Margie and
Luke, who win a seven day trip for two to the Westin Puerto Vallarta. Tammy
and Victor come in second with Mark and Michael in third.
OUSTED
Preston and Jennifer are outrun by Christie and Jodi, and
are eliminated. It must be tough to be the first to go,
especially when you're a competitive jerk like Preston,
but at least they have each other. And that's better than
a million bucks, right? Right.
NEXT WEEK
The gang travels to Germany and Linda somehow gets lost in
the Alps -- and cries. Margie and Luke hurl pies at each
other, and we're left to wonder when those creepy roaming
gnomes will show up.
