After watching the midgets deliberately sabotage the race I think the rules of the race shoyld change:

1. if this happens again, the team is penalised to last place. If that means elimination, so be it.

2. this would enable the good teams, such as mel and mike, to keep in the race, as they are good competitors.

3. if non elmination round, then the last team keeps on as per normal with the speed bump and such

Any thoughts?

The sabotage affected the physical well being of competitors which to me is not acceptable, penalty or not. I do triathlons in Phuket and believe me having a flat tire makes a lot of difference when running, especally pulling a rickshaw.

Look at the midgets after the rickshaw, they were not that tired and then look at the other teams. Yes they are fit but a fully inflated tyre helps a lot.

Thoughts?

• RE: Change the rules,Snidget, 07:16 AM, 04-01-09
• RE: Change the rules,cipher5150, 01:26 PM, 04-02-09
  • RE: Change the rules,Estee, 02:26 PM, 04-02-09
    • RE: Change the rules,cipher5150, 04:03 PM, 04-02-09
• RE: Change the rules,Belle Book, 06:53 PM, 04-02-09
  • RE: Change the rules,mindy23, 02:24 AM, 04-13-09
    • RE: Change the rules,Snidget, 04:45 AM, 04-13-09
    • RE: Change the rules,PepeLePew13, 09:39 AM, 04-13-09

Well there is no guarantee this will always save a team any given person likes, or any given person will define as "good".

I assume they have rules about not hitting and various other things.

Given the weather conditions and the physical nature of the tasks it would not be surprising that one of the racers got heat related or dehydration issues even if nothing happened. But then I guess the producers don't bear any responsibility for that. I mean I know they want the race to be challenging, but setting up heavy activities outdoors in extreme heat or in the cold without clothes on is something I'm surprised the insurance company and lawyers let them get away with.

I mean the producers could have actually gotten rickshaws with decent tires if they were so concerned pulling one in the condition they were in would kill someone.

I think they should have gotten the penalty, but lets change the rules so the producers can get rid of a team just to get rid of them kind of bothers me. I'm sure there are lots of things people have done over the years that could be interpreted at harm if the producers wanted to edit it that way.

Frankly, I think the whole tire pump thing is a whole lot of nothing. Yes, they shouldn’t have done it and they received an adequate penalty for it. I think I can say with complete certainty that they did not intend for anyone to be physically harmed by their actions. And there is a certain amount of personal accountability on the other teams who didn’t use the pumps. I mean, they were right there; they just weren’t as easy to see as they were before. But they were still clearly visible and in close proximity to the rickshaws. Does moving a tool two feet justify basically being kicked off? And honestly, I think Marge’s fainting was contributed to by the cumulative effects of several weeks of stressful, exhausting racing.

Mike and Mel were my favorite team and I still feel the penalty was adequate.

To keep this in perspective, here are some things teams have “deliberately” done in the past that did not result in a penalty:
Speeding (although sometimes a penalty has occurred)
Encouraging and/or bribing their cabbies to drive excessively fast
Roll their vehicle resulting in an injury to a cameraman
Minor traffic accidents
Using their foreign language skills (or just plain old english)to ask locals to refrain from helping other teams
Giving other teams deliberately misleading information
Stealing other team’s cabs / call and cancel other team’s requests for cabs

Give the right circumstances, any of these things could have resulted in an injury. Obviously it would be impossible for the producers to make a specific rule about every scenario so they just have to set some basic standards for what will get a penalty and what kind of penalty it will incur. I have no problem with that.

LAST EDITED ON 04-02-09 AT 08:27 PM (EST)

I think what a lot of people are struggling with here is 'Where is the line between strategy and interference?' I think it's a vocal/action divide: you can try to talk anyone into anything, but you can't force them to do it or prevent them from trying it.

Rob talking people into quitting the Roadblock: strategy. (It was just talk: they had the option to ignore him.)

Rob slamming the meat into the ground and stepping on it a few times: interference.

So speeding when you're the one driving is a penalty. Talking your cabbie into breaking the sound barrier is strategy. Asking the locals to help or not help is strategy, because the other teams can always try to persuade in the other direction. Yanking a native guide away from the team they're helping: interference. And so on down the line. (Canceling someone's cab would be an 'action' penalty: it's a vocal thing with very physical consequences, so it would constitute interference. Talk a team into taking the wrong flight, fine: cancel their paid tickets, issue.)

Personally, my problem was never so much with what Mark & Michael tried to pull as their reaction to the penalty. They still may not have decided they did anything wrong.

I don’t disagree with anything you wrote. There is certainly a huge difference between interference and strategy. I felt like Spider was saying that (s)he felt Marge was injured by their interference and they should (basically) be eliminated because of it. That anytime anyone engages in interference they should receive an essentially game ending penalty. I disagree. I think there can be fairly minor acts of interference (as I believe this was) and major acts of interference, and I don’t think they should have the same penalty.

My main point was that the opportunity to be injured either by interference or strategy is prevalent and I considered their interference to be minor and that the harsh penalty suggested by Spider was unwarranted.

As to Mark & Michael’s reaction to the penalty, well, too bad there isn’t a penalty for being a butthead.

LAST EDITED ON 04-02-09 AT 06:53 PM (EST)

I wouldn't have had an automatic last-place penalty for Mark & Michael. The penalty for the cab was fair. The penalty for their sabotage might've been changed to an hour, since I think it contributed to Margie's heat exhaustion. That's the only thing I think should've been changed.

If LUKE, who is a spoiled rotten, childish, good for nothing in this race BRAT, would have done the rickshaw, instead of having his 40-somehing y/o mom do it, Marge probably would NOT have had heat stroke AT ALL!

Nothing to do with the subject at hand, well sort of, but something that is really gnawing at me! Why is it that EVERY. SINGLE. (or almost) roadblock is done by her?? He is deaf, not paralyzed!!! AGH!!!!

He started out doing the physical part but he really couldn't hear his Mom when she was trying to make sure he knew where he was going.

If he'd only have listened when she was trying to navigate she wouldn't have had to take over for him.

I was under the impression he wanted to do it, and I'm sure him running through the streets at random would have eventually gotten them somewhere although if he ran for long enough even a young person like him could have fainted from the heat.

Um, Mindy... you did see that several other teams also switched over in doing the rickshaw besides Luke/Margie, didn't you? And Luke has done half of the roadblocks so far in this race - have you forgotten the marathon he did in his undies already? He also did the bungee jump and the bobsled. Margie has done 4 and Luke has done 3 so far in this race with one roadblock not shown in Episode 7 (likely done by Luke so they'd be even).

I've had heatstroke hit me literally out of nowhere, a hour after doing something strenuous, and it was hot as heck in Thailand so it could have happened to anyone there in the race.

Stinky Musings <--- blog's been updated!