By Jonathan Tully Sam and Dan — doing it wrong until Dan figured out how to act. (CBS) Longtime viewers of The Amazing Race know of one of the most difficult challenges in the show’s history: In season 6, competitors had to unroll more than 200 hay bales on a Swedish farm to find one of 20 clues. In one case, a pair of racers were in that field for more than 8 hours before host Phil Keoghan finally fetched them. They brought it back for season 15. And it’s no easier. First of all, when I talk about hay bales, I’m not referring to the little rectangular bales you may remember. No, these are huge, circular bales. So there’s a lot to hate about this challenge: 1. It’s heavy. 2. It’s playing havoc with allergies 3. It’s hay and it’s getting everywhere. And you end up hearing this: “Shut up, Dan! Shut up!” “I can’t do this anymore!” Unfortunately for the rest of the competitors, the Globetrotter team of Flight Time and Big Easy found their clue in very quick order. Whether it was sheer luck or Flight Time’s birthday wish coming true, that gave them the win for this round. (An aside: I’m not sure why the other teams — especially Sam and Dan — are not fans of the Globies. The guys are playful, fun and friendly. Teams need to keep in mind that it’s not just athleticism that

wins the race at the end.) The other teams dealt with the challenge at various levels of success. Meghan — the one who said “I can’t do this anymore!” — was among the first competitors to arrive with partner Cheyne, along with Sam & Dan. Now, Meghan, who understandably had some problems, did end up finding her clue second. But Sam & Dan had to deal with the arrival with two late-coming teams: Brian & Ericka and Gary & Matt. Brian found the clue very quickly, leaving us with two teams: Sam & Dan: Most of their scenes showed Dan screaming at Sam, and Sam screaming back for Dan to shut up. And I second that. (That said, credit to Dan for figuring out that it wasn’t helping anyone to yell.) Gary & Matt: Our farmboys struggled too, but Gary was in no mood to quit, nor was he in the mood to get too upset. Thankfully, Gary & Matt were given the best info you could ever hope for at the end of a leg of the race when you finish last — “This is a non-elimination leg.” Phew! Finally, here’s this week’s Elimination Station. With this week being a non-elimination leg, our former racers instead play a soccer game against the locals, while Mika and Canaan are having — stunner! — problems in the relationship.

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Man, that’s one ugly ‘Race’ challenge