Although the scene was cut from the broadcast episode, Vipul and Arti Patel of Florida came in last place because of a taxi driver. Not unusual in the game, the couple lost an hour's time trying to bargain the driver (through a translator) down to a price they actually could pay. "If that didn't happen, we would have gotten there at the same time the other teams were starting and we wouldn't have been eliminated," said Vipul.
That's the way the game is played, Vipul. Surprisingly, the Patels were actually the second team to be eliminated; earlier in the episode best friends Bilal Abdul-Mani and Sa'eed Rudolph, from Cleveland, were taken out at what everyone thought was a routine checkpoint. Abdul-Mani and Rudolph's loss was also due to a taxi driver. The Patels were the first Indian-Americans competing on CBS' The Amazing Race; Abdul-Mani and Rudolph were the first Muslims. The Amazing Race airs Sundays on CBS.