Father and son Gary and Matt Tomljenovich might have made the final four of The Amazing Race if not for a Speed Bump and getting tripped up by vocabulary.

Note to Matt: a "candelabra" is not an Estonian man downing beer.

The partners, ages 47 and 22, say they were actually better than they looked on TV. "They made it seem like we took a while at the Roadblock, but we didn't," Gary tells TVGuide.com. "Once he figured out what a candelabra was, we got out of there pretty quick. We actually made up time when we got to the mat." By how much did they miss a semifinal spot? Find out below — and see what team they worked alongside.

TVGuide.com: The way the episode was edited, it seemed like you reached the Detour just as Brian and Ericka finished the slingshot. Did you see them?
Matt: We didn't see them. They had just [checked in] when we showed up. They said we were seven minutes behind the last team. ... We knew we were last going into the Roadblock. We weren't sure we were last [at the end], but we had a good feeling, like unless someone got really lost, we were out.
Gary: We did the slingshot pretty quickly. It wasn't hard at all. We probably would've beaten them if we made up the seven minutes somehow or if there had been a less athletic team playing volleyball.

TVGuide.com: How long did the Speed Bump take?
Matt: It was three or four blocks. Then you have to strip down, sit in there and they close the door and you had to sit there 10 minutes. Then you had to get dressed again and then you had to run back. All in all, it took us about 20 minutes or so to do.
Gary: It was difficult when we got to the Roadblock because without other teams to follow or to get a lead from or to see what they're doing, we were on our own for that one.
Matt: When you run in there, you see a line of whatever it is you're supposed to grab, but when I ran in there, there was only one candelabra sitting in the middle of the table, so I didn't really know what I was looking for.

TVGuide.com: You also didn't light the paper completely and missed the word "gardens." Did that slow you down when you went to the tower?
Gary: A little because we ran to the tower at first and ran by the clue box. We ran by it twice actually. We [tried to go up] the tower and they were like, "No, no entry." So we were like, "Oh, that's wrong." At the time, there were a bunch of Japanese tourists standing around it, taking pictures of [the clue box] because they had seen the other teams come through and then we finally noticed it. Actually, I think somebody pointed it out to us!

TVGuide.com: Did you think the previous leg.....