The Amazing Online Race

A Review of The Race

While the players were playing the race, the servers of Sphosting suddenly went down. Players were unable to access the clues and were unable to continue the race. Because of this, the race was rescheduled 13 hours later and was played by 7 players. For those who did not play this part of the game, they were eliminated. But still many played and continued the race.

Teams Left the Chat room for the first clue. They were all excited and dashed through. They rushed in sheer excitement for the first clue. A little slow but they managed to push through. Players arrive at the first pit stop one by one. Team CEO was eliminated first and so was Team Jordan. Players were in leg 2 when a sudden twist not expected by the players not even by the host came rushing in. The server was down. All clues suddenly were blocked. All access to clues denied. No one could move on. The race was rescheduled 13 hours later.

October 26, 2002, 9am EST....

Teams start logging on one by one. The race started and only 5 teams were on. But soon, 2 teams more came on and joined the race. 3 quit 2 eliminated and 1 more did not finish. Only Team Merlion, a 15 year old male student from Singapore won the title of The Amazing Online Race. This is the first time where in a non American won this race. Team Merlion was sure to be proud of this for he proved that even though you have different culture from the mass of America, you can still win.

Teams start to quit one by one as expected. They were frustrated yet having fun at the same time. They cannot get the clues. They do not know what to do. You are very slow, still sleepy (it is early early morning), you are hungry, you are still tired, you are so slow, you want to win. In the end, Team Merlion stayed in the finish line while Team Canada who asked the last clue for me because the race was finished anyway, had some good talks with Team Merlion. Team Canada finished leg 5 but it was not counted because he just wanted to finish the race. He said that he was really very eager to play it no matter what. So The web address for leg 5 was given to him and from there, he finished the race completely.

An interview with Team Merlionn at the end of the race proved that there were some backstabbing going on, some alliances and some misunderstanding too. Overall, what I think is the worst season because of the servers turned out to be a great great great season for new teams to enjoy this truly and really amazing online experience. The only thing lacking in the players' part is for them to join the real Amazing Race.

Crossing the Finish Line

Only Team Merlion crossed the finish line for this season. All of the other players failed. When on the pit stop, Team Merlion even said that the race was not confusing at all. Maybe to him....