Introduction → Meet the Teams → Race Tracker → Leg 1 → Leg 2 → Leg 3 → Leg 4 → Leg 5 → Leg 6 → Leg 7 → Leg 8 → Leg 9 → Leg 10 → Leg 11 → Leg 12 → Leg 13 → Leg 14 → Leg 15
Leg 23.13 – “A Jolly Unlucky Day”
This is it! The pseudo-Penultimate Leg! The Final Elimination of the Race! And this Leg will take place in Ontario, Canada! Teams will hop on the Philippine Airlines Airbus A350 and fly to Toronto.
Teams will begin this Leg bright and early at 5am in front of the Cinesphere Theatre.
They will head inside and search the big IMAX theater for an empty film reel and their next clue. Teams will keep the reel until further notice.
Teams must now choose a brand-new 2023 Kia Sportage and find their next clue and a special breakfast treat at Jollibee. However, there are two nearby Jollibees and only one has their next clue.
Once teams have grabbed their clue and breakfast for the day, they must drive to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum where they will find a Road Block: Who can take control?
For this Road Block, teams will learn how to fly a 1952 single engine, two-seater de Havilland Chipmunk. After a brief lesson, the pilot will take them up to 2000 feet at 200 km/hr. Teams will then take the controls and perform a rate one turn, 360 degrees and at a consistent speed and altitude. Once teams have successfully completed the maneuver, they will receive the next clue.
That clue directs teams back to Toronto and the historic St. Lawrence Market. Peameal bacon is a Toronto specialty.
Here, teams will make enough peameal bacon for a sandwich that they can take with them for lunch. And they’ll get their next clue as well.
The clue will point teams to Scotiabank Arena where they will learn about the Detour: Warm Up or Ice Up.
In Warm Up, teams must head to North Toronto Memorial Arena and learn and perform ice hockey drills.
In Ice Up, teams must head to William P. Wilder’40 Arena & Sports Complex and use an ice resurfacer to properly resurface a section of the ice rink.
After the Detour, teams must head to TIFF Bell Lightbox, the home of the Toronto International Film Festival. And here, they will find another Road Block: Who wants to go back to the beginning?
For this Road Block, teams must search through film strips for one that shows their first moments on the Race from the Starting Line in Baguio. When they find the right film strip, the must learn how to load the film onto the reel they obtained earlier. When correct. They must place the reel onto a projector. And when the scene plays on the screen, they will receive the next clue.
That clue points teams to Niagara-on-the-Lake and the Old Courthouse ballrooms.
Here, teams must build a 13-level champagne tower using champagne coupes engraved with the countries they’ve visited on the Race in the order they’ve visited them, with the Philippines at the bottom-most level and Canada, the current Leg, up top. If they can successfully pour champagne down the pyramid without breaking a glass, they will receive the next clue.
That clue tells teams to find this winery.
Here, teams will assemble a wine barrel using staves that have the Pit Stop locations of Legs 1 through 12. Each Pit Stop will have two staves: one with the location and/or city and another with the country. Once they have correctly assembled the barrel, the Pit Stop for this Leg of the Race can be found inside. And they must take the barrel with them to…
Niagara Falls!
The first team to check-in here will win P200,000 courtesy of Shell V-Power Nitro+.
The first three teams to check-in will Race to the Finish Line And the last team to check-in here WILL be the final eliminated team.
^Click here to follow the teams through the Leg!
“Director’s” Commentary
Wowowow! This is a very full Leg! When working out the Race Tracker details, I saw that this Leg would end up taking around 14 hours at least! A bit impossible to make such a thing happen in real life. But TARPHDME is not real life, so that’s okay! Hehehe.
Anyway, this is definitely a “Penultimate” Leg-worthy Leg. If you are new to TARPHDME, I like to have Penultimate Legs be pseudo-Final Legs. Have it be very difficult. Almost as difficult as a Final Leg. Even throw in a few memory tasks too.
This Leg amazes me because this was actually a last-minute replacement/addition. When I decided on switching the two halves of the Race and settled on this Pacific portion of the route being the second half, I had to find another location to insert between Colombia and our actual Penultimate Non-Elimination Leg.
Somehow I ended up choosing Toronto. And this Leg was set in stone long before TARC9 started filming. So no, I did not take any inspiration from their blah Leg. Lolol
Actually, the main basis for this Leg was having a Pit Stop right at Niagara Falls. And then I realized, this Leg would be run in the winter time, so a snowy, icy Niagara Falls would be stunning! Especially with 8K UHD drones!
So, let’s go back to the start of the Leg first. I had the Pit Start at the Cinesphere since it seemed like a nice pre-dawn spot for one. And in thinking about what I wanted to do with a Toronto International Film Festival task, I thought, why not have it here and then connect it with the task later.
Next, of course we will visit a nice location of our sponsor food partner! The tricky thing here is we won’t tell the teams which Jollibee to go to. It might set teams back around 20 minutes if they choose the wrong Jollibee. But the Leg is so long, they can still catch up. And that would make for exciting TV!
Then we have teams driving one hour out of the way just to do the Road Block at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. Yes, it is a recycled TARC task. But a good one at least. Lol Now, I could have easily put this task later since teams will be driving past this area on the way to Niagara-on-the-Lake. But I wanted to have this task early in the Leg since it is a processional task. So really, this task is just for the coolness factor. Hehe
That’s why we have teams drive all the way back to Toronto for most of the Leg.
I read about peameal bacon and thought it would make for a nice task here. Maybe even a Detour option on a non-Penultimate Leg.
The Detour is very straightforward. Hockey drills or Zamboni. Should be equally matched I think.
The next Road Block is a bit of a needle in a haystack. But I think it should be okay. We won’t make it too hard. But I think it will be a good, tense task. Especially at this point in the Leg. And kinda cool as well having this throwback to the Starting Line.
I knew I wanted to have some Route Markers near Niagara Falls. So that’s when I found out about Niagara-on-the-Lake. I’m sure you could do a whole Leg here. (One better than TARC9 lol) But we only have two memory tasks here.
First, this isn’t exactly champagne country. But we’ll just go with this champagne (wine?) tower. It suits the area. And it is another tense, tedious task.
Next, the barrel making is of course related to the daredevil ideas of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. (Which we will not have teams do lol) But it is also a fun way to incorporate a memory-type task as well. This would be a good Final Leg task too. But that means it’s good enough for the Final Elimination Leg as well.
Teams needing to bring the barrel with them to the Mat is just one extra, final challenge.
And finally, ending the Leg with the Niagara Falls roaring behind the teams at the Mat will be stunning!
Overall, a really full and exciting Leg I think!