Cleveland friends are eliminated in 'Amazing Race' season opener

A Seattle traffic jam and a confused Beijing taxi driver caused Bilal Abdul-Mani and Sa'eed Rudolph to be the first team to be eliminated during Sunday night's season opener of "The Amazing Race."

Bad luck twice slowed down the best friends from Cleveland, the first Muslim team competing in the CBS reality series seen in this area on WOIO Channel 19. A traffic snarl forced them to take the second flight from Seattle to China, which lost them about an hour.

Then, on their way to the first destination point, a Bejing cabbie got lost. They were the last of the 12 teams to reach this destination, where Phil Keoghan, host of "The Amazing Race," was waiting with the first of his promised surprises. This was an elimination stop, and Abdul-Mini, 37, a medical supply technician, and Rudolph, 39, a power lineman, were being sent home.

"Wow," was all the talkative Abdul-Mani could say at first.

Then he told the other teams, "This just goes to show, you have no real control over anything. The creator does."

A second team was eliminated at the end of Sunday's 90-minute opener for the 10th edition of "The Amazing Race." Arti and Vipul Patel, an Indian-American couple from Florida, got the news at the Great Wall of China.

"The Amazing Race" moves into its new regular time period, 8-9 p.m. Sundays, on Sept. 24, with the 10 remaining teams competing for a $1 million grand prize. From China, the competitors will race to such locations as Kuwait, Mongolia, Madagascar and Vietnam.

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