“Juggernauts.” That’s how their fellow players described them. Like the Indian temple chariots the term goes back to, once Tucker and Eric got rolling on season 38 of The Amazing Race, there seemed to be no stopping them.
From the moment this scavenger hunt around the globe started, all other teams shared one opinion: These two brothers were going to be a force to be reckoned with. And they were. Tall. Crafty. Fast. And not short on wits either.
Tucker could pretty much build a rocket in a garage, and Eric seemed to have near-photographic memory. They were great with directions, could drive manual cars, and knocked out most challenges as if they were piñatas at a kid’s birthday party.
The only reason they placed in the top four for the first three legs of the race was that from the starting gun, they had a target on their back. But you can only stop a juggernaut for so long. They won the next four legs in a row. “Let’s goooooo!” their catchphrase rang out from the TV dozens of times.
Then came leg nine. A roadblock forced the brothers to choose one of them to master the Greek alphabet. This typically would have been Eric’s gig. But teams must make sure both members complete enough roadblocks throughout the season, and so, somehow, this one landed in Tucker’s lap.
He struggled. A lot. Greek lowercase letters? All jumbled up in order, with weird, similar-sounding pronunciations? It just wasn’t Tucker’s thing. So it took time. And more time. And more time. They had arrived at the challenge in third place but left in last.
After that, despite being only a few minutes behind, it only took a bit of taxi chaos in Athens to break the camel’s back: When Tucker and Eric met show host Phil Keoghan on the mat of the so-called Pit Stop for their check-in, all hope came too late. They had been eliminated.
I don’t yet know how the season ends. It was sad to see the other teams cheer so much at the brothers’ demise. Then again, I understand. Five Davids had slain a Goliath, and they all felt like they finally had a real shot at winning.
That’s the thing about giants: They may be tall, but they’re still walking—and that gives them as many chances to stumble as the rest of us.
