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Leg 23.02 – “Wag mong guluhin ang gulong ko!”
It’s time to travel the world! The 13 teams will make their way to New Manila International Airport and hop aboard a special Cebu Pacific A330neo flight to take them to their first international destination: Toulouse, France!
The Pit Start of this Leg will be at Capitole de Toulouse. Teams will depart in pairs every ten minutes.
Teams will first make their way on foot to Marche Cristal where they will find a Road Block: Who will ensure an accurate achat?
For this Road Block, teams will receive a list of ingredients for the famous cassoulet which they must purchase here at Marche Cristal. But the list is in French! And teams will have to figure out what each item is.
After the Road Block, teams will take the ingredients to this kitchen and together will properly prepare the cassoulet dish. Because it must be cooking for a few hours, teams will leave it for now.
Teams can now choose a brand-new 2023 Kia Sportage and drive themselves to the Airbus Factory just outside of the city. After parking, they will be escorted to the next clue box which reveals the Detour: Roue or Livree.
In Roue, teams must roll two plane-sized wheels to the assembly line and then properly attach the wheels to the landing gear using nuts and bolts. When properly attached and approved by the engineers, they will receive the next clue.
In Liveree, teams must choose an airline livery and must properly recreate it on a full-sized airplane tail. When it is ready for takeoff, teams will receive the next clue.
This is also a Limited Stations Detour. There are only seven slots on either side of the Detour. And teams will be locked into whichever Detour they choose first.
After the Detour, teams must search waiting Airbus planes ready for delivery and find one matching the model of the CebuPacific plane they flew on from the Philippines to France: an A330neo. Inside will be the next clue.
Teams must now drive themselves to Stade Ernest-Wallon, home field of the Stade Toulousain rugby team.
Here, teams must undergo rugby training drills and both team members must complete a drop kick in order to receive the next clue.
Next up, teams must return to The Kitchen where they will find the next clue. And that clue reveals another Road Block: Who wants to go to war?
Traditionally, there are three main varieties of cassoulet based on the types of meats used and representing the towns in which they originated from: Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Toulouse. For this Road Block, teams must identify which of the three bowls has a serving from the cassoulet they made earlier in the Leg and left to cook. They must then attempt to identify the other two before being given the next clue.
However! Each wrong guess will result in a five-minute penalty!
This is also the Trigger Point for this Leg of the Race! If any team is able to complete the Road Block without making any mistakes, then the U-Turn or Yield will be activated on the next Leg. And in a new twist this season, the team that is the first to activate the Trigger Point will be immune(!) from the U-Turn or Yield that will appear on the next Leg! Teams will not know of this twist until next Leg, nor will they know if they are immune until the U-Turn or Yield Reveal Board.
And that clue reveals the Pit Stop underneath Pont Neuf in Toulouse.
The first team to check-in here will win P200,000 courtesy of Shell V-Power Nitro+.
The last team to check-in WILL NOT be eliminated. This is another Non-Elimination Leg. And the last team to check-in must now choose a Non-Elimination Penalty envelope!
^Click here to follow the teams through the Leg!
“Director’s” Commentary
Our first international Leg of the season. And definitely a more traditional Leg compared to our CashKarera Leg last week!
Now again this season, CebuPacific and Philippine Airlines will be flying teams around the world. And I think they might be a bit more willing to sponsor a potential TAR in order to foster goodwill with the peoples. Both airlines have had some publicity troubles recently. So sponsoring The Amazing Race will help them score some points with Filipino audiences, I think hehehe
Anyway, having your own plane (not a regular charter either) allows you to go anywhere you might want to go to. No limits (on paper) where the Race could go. Of course, there’s a lot of logistics and planning involved in real life. But even with that freedom, you still have to be reasonable and somewhat realistic. Hehe.
France is a good first country for this route and first section of the Race as well. I’ve had Toulouse on the shortlist for a while mainly because I wanted TAR to visit the Airbus factory. This was the perfect time to finally go there, especially with the CebuPacific-sponsored charter plane being an Airbus. It all connects!
I actually originally had France and this first section of the Race at the end instead at one point. But the tasks in the coming Legs were much more suited to having more teams. The problem here though is the Detour having to be Limited Stations. We can’t have 13 stations for each side of the Detour. Especially not in a working factory like Airbus.
First off, we will start in the beautiful Capitole de Toulouse where we can have teams walking for a little bit before they have to drive themselves in their wonderful new Kia Sportages. Hehe
So other than the Airbus task, the main event this Leg will be the cassoulet. It’s actually a very interesting idea. I’m sure someone else can come up with better tasks involving it. But the first Road Block with buying ingredients in another language is a TAR staple. So good to have here.
The cooking is also another TARPHDME staple. And when we tell teams to leave it to cook, we won’t tell them that they will be returning later. That will be a surprise once they get that clue to tell them to return to the kitchen. (Which kitchen, I have no idea lol)
Next up is the Airbus factory. We want to maximize our time here. And I think Airbus will welcome us and work with us to promote the company and their planes of course.
I had no idea what kinds of tasks to do though. But why not just go all out. Have teams put on airplane wheels and paint liveries. You’re at the Airbus factory. Go for it! No replicas here. (Which I did consider.) Just have them actually assembling real airplanes. And safely, of course. These planes aren’t going to fly without proper inspections anyway. Hehe.
To maximize our time here, just a simple “search” task and another way to promote both Airbus and CebuPacific by finding the A330neo plane.
We’re in Toulouse, so of course a rugby task. Just something to fill the Leg with.
And finally, the second Road Block is just a fun way to connect to the start of the Leg and highlight the delicious dish. It’s not going to be a long task. And teams can just guess, most likely. But if there is a way to make the task more challenging, then it should be even better. But it’s good for just being an extra task here and to mess with the teams’ Road Block counts on this the “biggest Race ever!” hehe
The Pit Stop is a nice, somewhat secluded location and it looks great at the end of the day.
Now for the new Trigger Point twist, I wanted to spice things up a little for its return after a one season hiatus. I wasn’t sure what to do and I’m still not sure if this immunity twist will be good or horrifyingly bad. But you won’t know if you don’t try. Hehe
With this new twist though, I will need to come up with Trigger Points that hinge on at least one team activating it. No more “If there are equal number of teams at each side of the Detour” or something like that. It will have to be something specific in order to be able to grant immunity to the first team to activate the Trigger Point.
I think it’s an interesting twist. The strategy involved happens in the next Leg when teams might find out that someone they wanted to target is now immune. I can definitely see how the twist might end up being unfair or will hurt some feelings both for teams and fans. But it’s just something to spice up the Race without doing something horribly drastic. Anyway, TARPHDME prides itself on placing U-Turns and Yields in appropriate spots in Legs where targeted teams are not doomed to be eliminated. And instead, still have plenty of opportunity to save themselves and survive.
So overall, I think this is a good first international Leg. Lots of physical tasks that will hopefully challenge teams and allow for lots of shifts and placement changes throughout the Leg. Especially with the driving.
And since we consider the CashKarera Leg something special, this is the regular Non-Elimination Leg that we have at the start of the Race like was done last year on TARPHDME22. No more traditional Non-Elimination Legs until the Final 3! Woohoo!