‘The Amazing Race’s’ Maya and Rohan explain their Austin Powers-esque fiasco and why they didn’t back up
Maya and Rohan Mody‘s childhood dream was to go on “The Amazing Race.” They fulfilled their dream on Season 36, but the first leg quickly turned into a nightmare. The siblings had navigation issues right from the start of the race in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Wednesday’s season premiere, but things took a turn (no pun intended) for the worse when they got their car stuck sideways in a very narrow blocked street and had to pull an Austin Powers. You might be asking, “Why didn’t they just reverse?”
“We didn’t know they had that blockade down at the end of the street. And they were small, so you couldn’t really see it until you got all the way down,” Rohan tells Gold Derby (watch above). “So had we known those were there, of course, I would’ve gotten out of the car and would’ve stopped the traffic and we would’ve backed out of the spot. But by the time we had gotten all the way down there, the street was really narrow and we were a little scared to back it up, so I think that’s why we started to turn the car around.”
SEE ‘The Amazing Race 36’ cast
“Obviously that didn’t work out the way we anticipated,” Maya quips.
“There were about 15 to 20 people watching us too, laughing at us,” Rohan continues. “We eventually got the car out and we do identify that backing it up would’ve been the fastest route to get out of the car.”
The duo were already in last place at that point after getting lost and little help with directions. Though it wasn’t shown in the episode, they stopped multiple times for directions and tried to get a map at a gas station, but it didn’t have one. They spent about 20 minutes excavating the car from the alley, and though they lost precious time, just getting the car out gave them the biggest rush of adrenaline.
“At that point when we were completely perpendicular to the road, I thought Phil [Keoghan] was going to have to walk up and eliminate us,” Maya explains. “I was like, ‘We need to at least see the Pit Stop, we need to at least see the mat.'”
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