‘The Amazing Race’: Doug & Dylan Explain Roadblock Struggles & Gatekeeping Clue Box Directions

Alyssa Norwin November 6, 2026, 1:37 pm

What To Know

Doug and Dylan Matter were eliminated on Leg 7 of The Amazing Race Season 39.
In an interview with TV Insider, Doug explains what happened in the Roadblock where he fell behind the other teams.
Dylan also reveals if it was awkward with the other teams after he refused to reveal where the clue box was.

Doug and Dylan Matter survived a non-elimination leg of The Amazing Race in Albania, but their journey on Season 39 came to an end the following week when they were last to the Pit Stop in Sri Lanka.

The grandfather-and-grandson team was hit with a U-Turn in Leg 7 as their penalty for their last-place finish the week before. However, Daisha Wilks and Dalton Hamby, as well as Michelle and Matt Patterson, were also U-Turn victims after the other teams voted for them to have to complete both sides of the Detour, as well.

Doug and Dylan actually made it to the Roadblock before Daisha/Dalton and Matt/Michelle, and Dylan tried to give them a leg up in the competition by refusing to give the other teams directions to the clue box as his grandfather completed the handcart task.

“I didn’t want to be mean about it, but they made it clear that they didn’t want to help anybody. So after [Michelle and Matt made] that speech at the U-turn, I didn’t want to tell them where the Roadblock was,” Dylan explained. “I wanted to give [Doug] the best chance.”

Once the other teams found the clue box, Dylan had to wait around with Michelle and Daisha for their teammates to complete the Roadblock. “We weren’t super chatty back there,” Dylan laughed. “There’s a lot of stress in there. There were a few words here and there, but it wasn’t like we had just started racing together, so we knew. But I don’t think there’s actually any real animosity [from them].”

Unfortunately, Doug struggled with the Roadblock, and the other two teams completed it before him. “I stopped and got really good directions, and I even drew a little map and had confirmation on it. So I knew right where I was going,” Doug revealed. “It was very crowded and chaotic, but the only trouble was the information I got was wrong. And so I was two blocks away, and I had to get more information.”

Michelle Patterson, Matthew Patterson, Daisha Wilks and Dalton Hamby

CBS

Doug said he “kept moving,” but had the wrong directions once again. “All of a sudden, here’s Matt and Dalton going the other way,” he revealed. “And I went to where I thought it was and I thought, ‘Man, could they walk by before I leave?’ Turning around on those narrow streets with all that traffic was tough. I dumped part of the load, and then I was able to get back, and it went pretty simple after that once I got moving. But yeah, that cost us, definitely.”

Scroll down for more from Dylan and Doug, including how they decided to race together, why they didn’t form any alliances, and more.

It’s not super common to have a grandparent and a grandchild team on The Amazing Race. So tell me a little bit about how you decided to run together.

Dylan Matter: Pop took care of me when I was younger. Both my parents worked, so he took care of me and my sister. During that time, we did everything together, and that included watching TV. He introduced me to some of his favorite shows, including The Amazing Race, and I instantly fell in love with it. I was around eight years old, I said, “We’re going to race someday.” I remember sitting on his living room carpet and telling him that, and he looked at me like I was crazy.

Doug Matter: I thought it was really cute.

Dylan: He said yes, but he thought, “He’s never going to go through with it. That’s 10 years from now.” He would be 72 when I turned 18. And then on my 18th birthday, we jumped out of a plane together and right when we hit the ground, I told him, I said, “Hey, we got to go apply for The Amazing Race now.” And somehow we got on.

What did you do to try and train?

Doug: Well, one thing we did, we didn’t do enough of [laughs]. I worked with him on navigation. But we went out, we had fun. [It was his] summer after high school, and he already had travel plans with his dad, and I had travel plans with his uncle and his cousins. And so our time was limited because he’s going back and forth to college and setting up things. But we did things, physical things. For fun, we went axe-throwing and did archery and all that kind of stuff. We did a lot of navigation. We’d drive around, and his girlfriend, Sophia, would be with us, and she’d be the random stranger he’d have to go up to and ask for instructions. I took out a paper map. I got maps of Spain and Texas and France, so he’d have to learn how to read these maps and navigate that way. And he did really good on that.

CBS

There were a few alliances forming throughout the race. Were you working with any of the other teams specifically?

Dylan: No. I don’t think we were anyone’s first choice for an alliance, not even from always being in the back, but I think they just saw an 18-year-old and a 72-year-old and thought, “That’s probably not the best team to align with.” We don’t blame them. We thought that going in. People would help us here and there for sure. Typically, when they were leaving a challenge, people would be like, “Hey, here’s how you do this.” I don’t think it was too much of a threat for them to tell us that, but we didn’t really know people were working this close together and that they were helping each other so much in the challenges.

What Is the 'BLA' on 'Amazing Race' Season 39?

Doug: Yeah, that part of it has been really fun and interesting to watch as we watch the show, is that all these people that are working together. There’ll be one good navigator, and other people are following that person. And Dylan and I were quite often… we were more like Javi [Vintimilla] and Erin [Taylor], where they were competing on their own. But we talked about it before we went in there and said, “If I was one of the 30- or 40-year-old people that was looking at the other teams and saw a 72-year-old guy, I wouldn’t say that’s the guy I wanted.” I understand that.

Dylan: Yeah, it was no hard feelings. We just also couldn’t keep up with some of the teams. In Madrid, when we were carrying the ham, Connor [Wilson] and Garrett [McGuire] said we could follow them, but we couldn’t keep up.