Brothers Zach and Nate Johnson experienced a series of unfortunate events while competing on The Amazing Race — but one fans didn’t get to see was a water taxi dropping them off at the wrong location.
“When we did get on our water taxi, our water taxi driver didn’t take us to the right spot, so we got dropped off about another mile and a half away from the clue box,” Nate, 27, exclusively told Us on Thursday, October 1 following his and Zach’s elimination from the competition series. “So during that time, Zach and I … it just shows like we were hustling to get to where we were.”
During the Wednesday, September 30, premiere, which kicked off the race in Vancouver, viewers saw Zach, 30, and Nate barely missing an Aquabus that had sisters/best friends Dafina and Saran Dunmore and couple Daisha Wilks and Dalton Hamby onboard. Zach and Nate were able to grab the next available boat. However, it wasn’t until after their detour that it became crystal clear they were at the wrong spot.
“We didn’t see where people got dropped off after the water taxi,” Zach explained to Us. “We also never saw the flag detour because we just decided to do canoes and all the stuff that happened in between us running from where we got dropped off to them we didn’t see obviously.”
While the mistake didn’t help Zach and Nate’s position in the race, they now realize that their perseverance helped them keep their eyes on the prize.
“So it put in perspective in my mind that we really weren’t far behind,” Zach said. “Like I knew we weren’t once we started doing the canoes and stuff, but like it really was close because there was still a bunch of other stuff happening with these other teams that we couldn’t see.”
Nate added that it was “pretty cool” to “overcome” that “type of adversity.”
“It’s like whether or not it would have helped us either way. We just conquered that again. We ran, got proper directions, and followed where we needed to go,” he said. “You know, it wasn’t like ‘Oh no, we’re lost. How do we get there?’ It was like no, we did it.”
When Zach and Nate arrived at the canoeing challenge, there were multiple teams still finishing the task. Daisha, 28, and Dalton, 27, were initially at the flag puzzle in an attempt to work with Dafina, 51, and Saran, 52. However, the sisters strategically used their express pass to bypass the challenge and finish the race in 9th place. Daisha and Dalton ultimately switched to the canoes in hopes to beat out Zach and Nate.
The Amazing Race aired its first season in September 2001 — and has had its fair share of shocking moments in the decades since. The CBS game show follows teams of two as they race around the world completing various tasks and mental challenges in hopes of winning $1 million. Hosted by Phil Keoghan, the […]
Zach, Nate, Daisha and Dalton completed the canoe task around the same time and it was a nail-biting race to the pitstop. Daisha and Dalton ultimately beat them by mere minutes.
“Like they got to the taxi actually probably about a minute and a half, two minutes before us … That was literally the spread. I remember we hit a red light that I think they went through, and it was just a matter of just the right timing is all it was, but it was close,” Zach recalled. “Like even when we got to the pit stop, I think the only difference was like two to four minutes. So like everything really was close.”
The Amazing Race’s two-part premiere continues on Thursday, October 1, at 9:30 p.m. ET. The Amazing Race will then air regularly on Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET.
