Red Zone

The Red Zone is a challenge about halfway through the competition including all of the teams that were eliminated previously. A predetermined amount of teams will get back into the race, usually 1 or 2.

Season 2
Season 2's variation of the Red Zone was drastically different. Instead of teams competing, individual racers competed. The two best individuals would rejoin the race as a team. Due to a tie in the leg right before the Red Zone, there were 8 people competing instead of 6, as was planned.

Challenge: Because there were more individuals than planned, there were two stages. In the first stage, racers had to find an Easter egg while they were blindfolded. The top male and the top female would be back in. The next four people would move on to the second stage; the last two people would be eliminated.

Season 3
The Season 3 Red Zone was the first appearance of the blindfold water jug challenge. This challenge returned in the Season 5 opening challenge and the Season 6 Red Zone. In this version of the challenge, teams were given a pre-determined amount of time to get as much water into their jug as possible. James and Emily won the Red Zone and returned to the Race.

Season 4
The Red Zone on Season 4 featured a challenge where teams had to build a marshmallow tower using toothpicks to reach a certain height. The two winning teams would return to the competition. However, due to some controversy and confusion over the rules of this challenge, an unprecedented three teams returned to the competition. This was addressed in the leg immediately following the Red Zone by having a mid-leg elimination. The three teams that won the Red Zone and returned to the Race were Hannah and Andrew, Jake and Elizabeth, and Matthew and Zoe.

Season 5
The Season 5 Red Zone was a two-stage challenge where the top two teams from the first stage would compete on the second stage in order to return to the Race. In the first stage, one member of each team had to eat a bowl of pudding that was fed to them by their blindfolded partner. The two teams that moved on were Hannah and Abigail and Jeremiah and Jonathan.

In the second stage, one team member had to race blindfolded to a bucket and search among ice in the bucket to find a certain number of rocks. When they had all the rocks, they had to put the rocks in order to reveal a message. The first team to do so would return to the competition. Hannah and Abigail won this second stage and returned to the Race.