Ali Krieger & Joanna Lohman — Pro Athletes and Moms
Anuar Tager & Andrea Tager Ballesca - Father and Daughter
Ann-Marie Tejcek & Riley Tejcek — Mother and Daughter
Dafina Dunmore & Saran Dunmore — Sisters
Zach Johnson & Nate Johnson - Brothers
Conner Wilson & Garrett McGuire — Childhood Friends
Doug Matter & Dylan Matter — Grandfather and Grandson
Cody Langlois & Jaime Tribo - Siblings
Erin Taylor & Javi Vintimilla — Married Couple
Daisha Wilks & Dalton Hamby — Dating Couple
Jody Rebhun & Jenn Naso — Ivy League Graduates
Michelle Patterson & Matt Patterson — Married Couple
Katie Schultz & Charlotte Schultz - Sisters

Every team holds real leverage from minute one.

The Express Pass has existed since Season 17, but it's always been a scarce advantage, earned by winning a leg, gifted by another team, or found through a hidden task. Handing all 13 teams one at the starting line inverts the usual dynamic entirely: instead of a small handful of teams holding a strategic edge, everyone does, and the real skill becomes deciding when to cash it in.

The pass expires after leg six.

Teams aren't allowed to sit on their Express Pass indefinitely. Whatever they haven't used by the end of the sixth leg is simply gone, forcing every team to make a real strategic call well before the merge-equivalent stretch of the race.

Only one team can use a pass per task, first-come, first-served.

Based on how this same twist played out in The Amazing Race Canada 12 earlier in the year, expect a rule limiting Express Pass usage to one team per task on a given leg. That turns the pass into a race within the race: the moment a tough Roadblock or Detour appears, teams may be scrambling not just to finish it, but to be the first ones to skip it entirely.

It's been compared to Survivor's Shot in the Dark.

Because every team gets one, nobody's really disadvantaged by the twist existing, only by how well or poorly they choose to use it. Commentators have already drawn the comparison to Survivor's modern-era Shot in the Dark: a safety net available to everyone, but a real skill in knowing exactly when to pull it.

It was hidden inside a clue.

At the Leg 3 Roadblock in Morocco, racers had to smash rejected pottery jugs to find the clue hidden inside, and many of the jugs held nothing but a “Try Again” message. The Roadside Assistance was tucked inside one of the real clues, so finding it came down to luck.

Sisters Dafina and Saran Dunmore have it.

The Dunmores found it, and according to episode recaps, they told Phil Keoghan at the Pit Stop that no other team knows they're holding it.

It expires after Leg 5.

The advantage can be used on any Roadblock in the next two legs, Legs 4 and 5. If the Dunmores haven't played it by the end of Leg 5, it's gone.

It works differently from the Express Pass.

An Express Pass skips a task entirely, and every team started the race with one. Roadside Assistance doesn't skip anything; it splits the work on a Roadblock, and only one team has it.

How fast teams burn their Express Passes.

With a hard expiration at the end of leg six, expect early, aggressive use from teams worried about wasting the advantage, and real second-guessing from anyone who holds out too long and gets burned by the deadline.

When the Dunmores cash in Roadside Assistance.

They have two Roadblocks to play it on before it expires, and no other team knows they have it. Watch whether they use it at the first chance or hold it for a harder task, and whether anyone else starts to suspect.

Whether the “everyone has one” format actually levels the playing field.

In theory, a universal Express Pass removes the usual leg-one-winner snowball effect the traditional single Express Pass tends to create. Whether that holds up once real teams start making real strategic choices under pressure is one of the season's most interesting open questions.

The live Double U-Turn vote dynamics.

A public vote for who gets U-Turned is a meaningfully more confrontational mechanic than a hidden board. Watch for how alliances, grudges, and threat assessments play out once every team has to commit to a target in front of the whole group.

The return to a truly global route.

After a Europe-only season, five continents and 25,000-plus miles is a real statement about scale. Expect the kind of iconic, high-adrenaline stunts, like the Vancouver stadium jump, that have defined the franchise's biggest seasons.

How exactly the Express Pass usage rule works in practice.

We know it's first-come, first-served for a given task, based on how the twist played out on the Canadian version of the show earlier this year, but CBS hasn't confirmed the exact rules for Season 39 itself. Does a locked-out team have to complete the full task with no alternative? We'll find out.

How Roadside Assistance plays out in practice.

We know the Dunmores can bring in a partner on a Roadblock in Legs 4 or 5. We don't yet know whether both partners work the task at the same time, whether they'll use it at the first opportunity, or whether another team learns they have it.

What happens after leg six.

Once every team's Express Pass has either been used or expired, does the race revert to a completely standard second half? Or is there another twist waiting to fill that gap?

Which teams actually understand the strategic shift.

Every past Express Pass had scarcity value built in. A season where everyone starts with one rewards a completely different kind of thinking, patience, timing, and reading when opponents are about to cash in themselves. Some teams will almost certainly play this like a scarce resource out of habit. Watching who adapts fastest will be a real early tell for who's built to go the distance.

How the live U-Turn vote changes team behavior mid-leg.

Voting live, in front of every other team, is a fundamentally more socially loaded mechanic than the traditional board. Will teams openly campaign for votes? Threaten retaliation? The televised group dynamics here could be genuinely unlike anything the show's done with this twist before.