Every year, Doug Matter gave his grandson Dylan a choice for his birthday: a present or an adventure. When Dylan turned 18, he cashed in on both at once. The two of them applied for The Amazing Race and got in.
Doug was 72 when they stepped onto the starting line. That made him the oldest competitor in the show’s history. Dylan, at 18, was the youngest. The age gap between them was the largest any two partners had ever brought to the race.
It was a long time coming. Dylan had watched the show with his grandfather since he was about eight years old. That’s when he first told Doug, “Someday, you and I should run this race together.” Doug thought it was sweet. He also quietly did the math. He was 62 at the time. “I’d be 72,” he remembered thinking. “Let’s see what happens.”
What happened was seven legs across multiple countries, more than a few wrong turns, and a grandfather-grandson bond that got even stronger along the way.
Always in the Back, Never Giving Up
Doug and Dylan were not at the front of the pack. They finished near the back in three of the first four legs. Navigation was their biggest struggle. They got lost in Madrid. They got lost in Morocco. Their fellow racers eventually nicknamed them the “lost boys” of the season.
But they kept coming back. In Morocco, they were so far behind that Dylan had already started saying his goodbyes. “Pop, I had a great time. Thanks for doing this with me,” he told his grandfather. Doug’s answer was simple: “This isn’t over until Phil tells us it’s over.”
Dylan ended up finishing a slipper-stacking challenge in about three minutes, fast enough to pull them out of last place. That kind of come-from-behind moment became their signature. They called themselves the “catfish” of the season, and their motto was to just keep swimming.
Doug said their goal going in was modest: don’t be the first team eliminated, and complete at least half the race: six legs. They hit both marks. After that, he told Dylan, everything else was icing on the cake. Doug credited his college baseball coach for that mindset. Once you win the league, everything after is a bonus.
A Penalty, a Strategy, and a Very Close Finish
After a rough leg in Albania, they finished last and faced elimination. Instead, it was a non-elimination leg; they were saved. The cost came in the next leg, in Sri Lanka. Because of their non-elimination penalty, they received an automatic U-Turn at the start of that leg, meaning they had to complete an extra task before moving on.
They chose to use their U-Turn vote on teams they thought they might be able to outlast on physical challenges: Anuar and Andrea, and Daisha and Dalton. During the leg, Dylan made a bold move at a fish-selling task. While the competing team was charging 500 per kilo, Dylan dropped his price to 200, drawing a long line of buyers. They ended up making more sales than any other team.
They even arrived at the final task of the leg ahead of the other teams. But Doug got lost during a delivery challenge, and they couldn’t recover. Daisha and Dalton reached the mat just about a minute ahead of them. After seven legs, Doug and Dylan’s race was over.
Dylan said finishing that close made it sting a little. But he had no hard feelings. “We really worked hard,” he said. “We really, really tried to make that comeback.”
What They Learned About Each Other
Doug raised Dylan and his sister full-time when they were young, since both of Dylan’s parents worked. They have always been close. But Dylan said the race showed him something new about his grandfather.
“I learned how well he works under pressure,” Dylan said. He knew Doug had been a firefighter, but had never really understood what that meant until he watched him stay calm leg after leg while Dylan himself was anxious and stressed. “I told him at the end, ‘I wouldn’t have gone past Leg 2 without you.'”
Doug, for his part, watched Dylan grow into a leader over the course of the race. “I call it ‘the student becoming the teacher,'” he said. Dylan would step up, take charge, and make the calls. That was exactly what Doug had always hoped to see from his grandkids. “You can’t buy this kind of experience,” he said.
They went in as a grandfather and grandson who already loved each other. They came out closer than either of them expected. That, Doug would probably tell you, was the real prize.
