The 9 Most Amazing ‘Amazing Race’ Moments Ever

The Amazing Race has lived up to its title, having put contestants through their paces across more than a million miles in nearly 100 countries in the American series’ history thus far. Along the way, viewers have witnessed highs and lows… and we’re not just talking rugged topography.

Now the CBS reality competition is gearing up for its 38th season premiere this Thursday (September 25), having invited more than a dozen Big Brother alums and their traveling companions on a race around Europe.

“For this season, it was fun to bring the former Big Brother players out of the house and on an adventure in the real world, as the Race is a global triumph that continues to inspire and connect people all over the world,” co-creators and executive producers Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri said in a statement.

If CBS is lucky, Season 38 will feature highlights as iconic as the ones below. After flipping through the Amazing Race passport, we’ve selected these moments as the show’s most amazing.

9. Jet & Cord Go From Last to First

Season 16’s Jet and Cord Jarrett McCoy came back from last place to become the first-ever Amazing Race team to complete the Speed Bump and hit the mat first in the following leg. “That’s pretty unbelievable,” host Phil Keoghan told the brothers after they flipped their fortune.

8. Nat & Kat Make Amazing History

The Amazing Race finally got its first all-female winning team in Season 17, when Nat Strand and Kat Chang made it to the finish line first and claimed their $1 million prize. Plus, Nat did it all while managing diabetes. “It means the world to me to show people that have diabetes that you can be as active as you want,” she said on the show.

7. Tyler & Korey Win Nine Legs

Best friends and content creators Tyler Oakley and Korey Kuhl came in third place in Season 28 and second place in Season 31, but they did become the first team to accrue nine career leg wins during the latter race. Later that same season, Colin Guinn (more on him later) and Christie Woods tied their record and won the $1 million grand prize.

6. A Footrace to the Finish

The second-ever Amazing Race had a nail-biter of an ending as Chris Luca and Alex Boylan sprinted past Tara Lynch and Wil Steger with the finish line in sight. “Hardcore TAR fans know what happened at this exact spot,” a Reddit user wrote in 2021, captioning a snapshot of that endpoint, a bluff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

5. Lena Won’t Bail on the Bales

Season 6 teammates Lena Jensen and Kristy Jensen got eliminated in Sweden, but not for lack of trying. In an amazing show of persistence, Lena spent eight hours looking for one of 20 clues hidden in 270 bales of hay, “I just felt like I didn’t have any option to quit,” she told the Associated Press after the competition.

4. A Million-Dollar Shave

En route to claiming Season 7’s $1 million jackpot with then-husband Uchenna, Joyce Agu tearfully agreed to shave her head in India to score a Fast Forward. But she ended up appreciating the new ’do, as she told CBS News: “Once you shave it off, you have nothing to hide behind. People can actually see your soul. It’s so bizarre. I’m glad I did it.”

3. Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin on the Hillside

In the show’s most infamous challenge, the Season 14 teams — including future Survivor contestant/White Lotus creator Mike White and his dad — had to tote 50-pound wheels of cheese down a slippery Swiss slope. The wheels, of course, escaped their clutches and careened downhill, leading to the episode title, “Don’t Let a Cheese Hit Me.”

2. A Broken Ox Breakdown

Anyone who found the aforementioned Colin grating in Season 5 must have cheered for the ox that refused to cooperate during a Philippines plowing challenge. “My ox is broken!” he screamed in a quote that inspired the title of an Amazing Race book. “This is bulls***!”

1. A Watermelon to the Melon

Season 17’s premiere challenged the teams to slingshot watermelons across the English countryside, and — in the moment Keoghan said is fans’ favorite ever — an unlucky backfire sent a watermelon right into Claire Champlin’s face. (And her teammate was… empathetic-ish.)

“[Medics] gave me some Panadol and told me I was going to be fine,” Claire later told News.com.au. “Then a producer came up to me and said, ‘Thanks for our Emmy this year.’”

The Amazing Race, Season 38 Premiere, Thursday, September 25, 9/8c