‘The Amazing Race’: 1 Team Nearly Had Their Passports Seized in Morocco
Hundreds of teams have run around the globe pursuing $1 million and bragging rights on The Amazing Race. Teams are normally casualties of their own undoing as they hit obstacles. However, sometimes they are detained for reasons beyond their control.
Teams often get eliminated for falling behind or getting stuck on challenges. Occasionally they are in more danger than just arriving last at a checkpoint. In at least a few instances, the show’s security and even government officials have needed to step in to get participants safely to the next checkpoint.
Andre and Damon competed on ‘The Amazing Race’ Season 3
Andre Plummer and Damon Wafer competed on Season 3 of The Amazing Race. Plummer, a police officer, and Wafer, a firefighter, dubbed themselves “Team 911.”
The two were friends in college and reunited while living in LA several years later. The team was fairly well-traveled before the series thanks to their military backgrounds. Plummer served in the U.S. Air Force, and Wafer was active in the Marine Corps.
The competitors were confident in their abilities to be frontrunners in the competition thanks to that travel experience. They also attributed their ability to solve problems quickly from their day jobs. “The most important item I am carrying is not in my backpack. It is underneath my hat. I am pretty smart and resourceful,” Wafer said of his skillset, according to the show’s fan page.
Meanwhile, Plummer contributed by focusing on analyzing other teams well and strategizing based on the rules of the show. The duo earned the ire of their fellow competitors for making a habit of “drafting” off of other teams until they could complete the rest of the leg on their own, among other tactics.
The team needed help from ‘The Amazing Race’ security
Plummer and Wafer raced from the U.S. through Mexico, United Kingdom, Portugal, and Spain before hitting an unplanned obstacle in Morocco that ultimately knocked them out of the competition.
Getting into Morocco was actually Team 911’s strongest leg. According to the fan page, they finished second out of eight teams as they traveled from Portugal and Spain into North Africa. However, while in Morocco they took a cab ride that was their demise.
The driver took them extremely far off course — so far that their travels became suspicious. They were detained by local authorities who attempted to confiscate their passports. The racers refused to hand them over, which escalated the incident.
At that point, the show’s security team intervened on their behalf to sort out the situation, reports Screen Rant. The duo was allowed to keep competing despite the significant setback. But the delay was too much to overcome in the next leg of the race. They attempted to get to Munich to compensate for lost time but were eliminated, finishing in sixth place.
Authorities have also detained other ‘The Amazing Race’ participants
Plummer and Wafer were one of the earliest teams on the show to be detained by local authorities. But they aren’t the only ones throughout 34 seasons of the show.
During Season 5 of The Amazing Race, dating couple Colin Guinn and Christie Lee Woods were almost arrested in Tanzania for refusing to pay their full cab fare. The cab driver and Guinn originally settled on $100 for a cab ride. But the driver was already driving on a spare tire and got another flat tire while driving Guinn and Woods to Kilimanjaro Airport.
The team eventually makes it to the airport. Guinn at first refuses to pay the full fare because of the delay. “You can bring the president of your country down here and I’ll be glad to talk to him,” Guinn is seen saying in a YouTube clip.
The driver opts to find a police officer. He tries to open a criminal case against Guinn, who relents, paying the full fare to catch his plane to the next destination in Kenya. Despite the setbacks in this leg, the duo secured their fourth first-place finish in the competition during that episode. They went on to finish second in Season 5. They returned to the competition show for Season 31 and won the entire race that time.
The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan hasn’t escaped from being detained throughout the show’s history, either. In Season 10, Keoghan attempted to travel to Ukraine in the middle of the night without a visa. He’d been told he wouldn’t need one while traveling on his New Zealand passport.
However, he was escorted out of the customs line at the airport and detained in a locked room alone for several hours. Finally, a woman from the U.S. government could process a visa for him. (According to the New York Post, the woman was a huge Amazing Race fan.) Keoghan was released in time to make it to the pit stop just 10 minutes ahead of the first arriving team for that leg.
