The Amazing Race 12

The Amazing Race 12 is the twelfth season of the American reality competition show The Amazing Race. Hosted by Phil Keoghan, it featured 11 teams of two, each with a pre-existing relationship, competing in a race around the world for US$1,000,000. This season visited four continents and 10 countries, traveling approximately 30,000 miles over eleven legs. Filming took place between July 8 and July 29, 2007. Starting in Los Angeles, California, racers traveled through Ireland, the Netherlands, Burkina Faso, Lithuania, Croatia, Italy, India, Japan, and Taiwan before returning to the United States and finishing in Girdwood, Anchorage, Alaska. New twists introduced this season included the U-Turn, where one team could dictate that another team must complete both options of the Detour before being able to continue, and a new non-elimination leg penalty called the Speed Bump, where teams that finished in last place were required to complete an additional task in the following leg. The season premiered on CBS on November 4, 2007, and the finale aired on January 20, 2008.
Newly dating couple TK Erwin and Rachel Rosales were the winners of the season, while father and daughter Ronald and Christina Hsu finished in second place, and grandson and grandfather Nicolas Fulks and Donald Jerousek finished in third place.

Overview

The Amazing Race is a reality television show created by Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri, and hosted by Phil Keoghan. The series follows teams of two competing in a race around the world. Each leg of the race requires teams to deduce clues, navigate foreign environments, interact with locals, perform physical and mental challenges, and travel on a limited budget provided by the show. At each stop during the leg, teams receive clues inside sealed envelopes, which fall into one of these categories:

Route Info: These are simple instructions that teams must follow before they can receive their next clue.
Detour: A Detour is a choice between two tasks. Teams may choose either task and switch tasks if they find one option too difficult. There is usually one Detour present on each leg.
Roadblock: A Roadblock is a task that only one team member can complete. Teams must choose which member will complete the task based on a brief clue they receive before fully learning the details of the task. There is usually one Roadblock present on each leg.
Fast Forward: A Fast Forward is a task that only one team may complete, which allows that team to skip all remaining tasks on the leg and go directly to the next Pit Stop. Teams may only claim one Fast Forward during the entire race.
U-Turn: Introduced this season, a U-Turn allows one team to force that another team is required to complete both options of the Detour before they can continue the race. Teams may use the U-Turn only one time during the entire race.
Speed Bump: The season introduced a new penalty for teams who were spared elimination by finishing in last place on a non-elimination leg, the Speed Bump. It required the team to complete an additional task in the following leg that only they had to complete.

Most teams who arrive last at the Pit Stop of each leg are progressively eliminated, while the first team to arrive at the finish line in the final episode wins the grand prize of US$1,000,000.

Production

Development and filming

In May 2007, it was announced that CBS had renewed The Amazing Race for its twelfth season, originally scheduled to air as a mid-season replacement of the 2007–08 United States network television schedule. Fall 2007 marked the first time since its sixth season that The Amazing Race was not included in CBS's initial fall television schedule, as the show had adopted a twice-yearly Spring/Fall schedule pattern since 2004 following poor ratings for season six. According to executive producer Bertram van Munster, the change had a minimal affect on the season's production in comparison to the previous seasons. It was later announced that after the cancellation of Viva Laughlin, The Amazing Race 12 would take its time slot, beginning its airing on November 4, 2007, earlier than originally intended. The finale aired on January 20, 2008. It was broadcast in standard-definition. During the airing of the season, it was announced that The Amazing Race 13, the following season, had been greenlit.
The season was filmed in the summer of 2007, after the airing of The Amazing Race 11 concluded. The season was filmed between July 8 and July 29, 2007, a 21-day period. The race's starting line was set outside the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, California. Its finish line was located in Girdwood, Anchorage, Alaska, making it the first time the finish was not located in the contiguous United States. The season saw teams travel approximately 30,000 miles during the competition. At 30,000 miles, it was one of the shortest routes in the show's history. Van Munster explained that the shorter course was purely incidental given the countries visited. Teams raced through 10 countries across four continents. Five countries in the route were new to the series: Ireland, Burkina Faso, Croatia, Lithuania, and Taiwan. Preparation for a season typically takes between four and five months. When designing the season's challenges, van Munster wanted to ensure the race could be won by anyone no matter their age, so tried to making the challenges a balance of mental and physical tasks. The time spent at Pit Stops lasted between 12 and 36 hours. Michael McKay, executive producer of The Amazing Race Asia, revealed that while they were filming The Amazing Race Asia 2, they crossed paths with the production team of The Amazing Race 12 in an airport.
The first five eliminated teams were sequestered at a villa in Portugal to await the finale. Subsequently, eliminated teams telephoned to inform the teams at the villa of their elimination, but continued to run the race as decoys to throw off potential spoilers. The sequestered teams met up with the decoy teams in the final destination city to cheer on the final three teams as they crossed the finish line. CBS posted short videos on its website after each episode aired in the Pacific Time Zone as part of its Elimination Station series, which showed the eliminated teams interacting at the villa.
At the Television Critics Association summer press tour in the following July, the show's then-executive producer Jonathan Littman stated that The Amazing Race 12 would be two episodes shorter than the previous season, and remove non-elimination legs in an effort to "create more excitement". As there was set to be no non-elimination legs, the season was announced to also have no penalties, which van Munster said would make The Amazing Race 12 fast-paced. In the seventh episode of the season, however, it was revealed that there would be two non-elimination legs, one less than the usual three. This season introduced two gameplay mechanics to The Amazing Race: the U-Turn and the Speed Bump. A U-Turn allows one team to force that another team is required to complete both options of the Detour before they can continue the race. Teams may use the U-Turn only one time during the entire race. There were two opportunities to use the U-Turn in the race, occurring in the season's fourth and eighth legs. The Speed Bump was a newly-introduced penalty which required teams that finished last on a non-elimination leg to complete an additional task in the following leg that only they were required to complete.

Casting

The cast consisted of 11 teams of two who each had a pre-existing relationship; five teams were married or dating, four were made up of family members, and two were teams of friends. Littman noted that the cast was generally younger than previous seasons. As the previous season was the show's first time bringing back previous contestants, van Munster was excited to film The Amazing Race 12, as it was a cast full of people who were new to reality television and didn't know the "tricks of the trade". It was noted that the cast lacked any teams of young men, and that 15 of the 22 individuals were either from or resided in California. Van Munster commented that neither was intentional. Two days after the series premiere, CBS launched a page dedicated to The Amazing Race on social networking site Facebook via Facebook Ads.

Contestants

Contestants	Age	Relationship	Hometown	Status
	21	Best Friends	Fountain Valley, California	Eliminated 1st '
	23	Best Friends	Fountain Valley, California	Eliminated 1st '
	49	Married Ministers	Thousand Oaks, California	Eliminated 2nd '
	65	Married Ministers	Thousand Oaks, California	Eliminated 2nd '
	25	Sisters	Miami, Florida	Eliminated 3rd '
	33	Dating	Sherman Oaks, California	Eliminated 4th '
	32	Friends	Los Angeles, California	Eliminated 5th '
	32	Friends	Los Angeles, California	Eliminated 5th '
	27	Brother & Sister	New Orleans, Louisiana	Eliminated 6th '
	23	Brother & Sister	Torrance, California	Eliminated 6th '
	31	Dating Goths	Louisville, Kentucky	Eliminated 7th '
	29	Dating Goths	Louisville, Kentucky	Eliminated 7th '
	24	Dating	Fountain Valley, California	Eliminated 8th '
	23	Dating	Huntington Beach, California	Eliminated 8th '
	23	Grandson & Grandfather	Chicago, Illinois	Third place
	68	Grandson & Grandfather	Elkhorn, Wisconsin	Third place
	58	Father & Daughter	Tacoma, Washington	Runners-up
	26	Father & Daughter	Washington, D.C.	Runners-up
	22	Newly Dating	Huntington Beach, California	Winners
	23	Newly Dating	Huntington Beach, California	Winners

;Future appearances
After the season ended, Kynt & Vyxsin applied for third season of The Amazing Race Asia but were turned down by producer Michael McKay due to their prior Amazing Race experience. Their audition was shown on the "Racers Revealed" episode of the season. Kynt & Vyxsin and Ronald & Christina competed again on The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business, with Kynt and Ronald now going by "Kent" and "Ron", respectively. During the season, Christina Hsu revealed that she was engaged to Azaria Azene. They married in March 2011.