Highly Strung

A couple of weeks back I took my 11-year-old boy, Alex, out for a father and son bonding day. It was one of those days where you answer to no one but your stomach, keep nobody else’s time but your own, eat too much junk food, make fun of slow drivers on the left lane, turn your cellphone to silent, and just go where the wind blows. We used to do this a lot more often, but sadly, as responsibilities at work grew, precious time like this shrank. So when Chevrolet Philippines invited me along to a very informal track day, or shakedown of their Cruze race car, which will once again compete in the Philippine Touring Car Championship, I grabbed a day bag and threw a couple of bikes onto my roof racks and headed North to the Clark International Raceway.

This was not official media coverage, so there were no voice recorders, professional camera equipment, strained interviews or press releases to sort through; this was just a generous offer to two boys who were allowed to play on the track in someone else’s race car and drive it until breakfast starts trying to make a comeback – which in Alex’s case was around turn 3.

After holding on bravely for a couple of laps, Alex had scratched the itch of being driven around by dad in a genuine race car, so we thanked the good folks of Chevrolet and took our bikes for a nice long ride around Clark. About 4 kilometers into it though, my tire burst forcing us to walk the entire distance back. Well, I walked and Alex circled me laughing occasionally at what he believed was karma for trying to drive the food out of his stomach in the Chevy Cruze. So it was Dad 1, Alex 1.

This was the un-vulcanize-able type of puncture, so the epic bike ride idea was shelved like a padded government contract from a previous administration and it was off to McDonald’s for lunch. Now anyone who has ever been to the McDonald’s in Clark will know all about the local vendors that form a forcefield around the restaurant. Trying to avoid them as you make your way in to the restaurant is a bit like trying to run to and from your car in the rain without getting wet. Its not a matter of if, but just how wet you will get. And for two foreign-looking boys like us with two full sized bikes on our roof, Lady Gaga in full concert gear had a better chance of not getting noticed.

I’m pretty used to the “would you like fries with that?” line, but I still have a hard time coming to grips with up-selling your happy meal with a bow and arrow or a bird calling device. But it’s all part of the local charm and Alex and I soaked it all up and turned it into a little game. The object was to make it to the car without getting sold something. We thought of just running as fast as we could to the car, but they had vendors strategically placed everywhere. (The PNP could learn a thing or two here.) Eventually we went for the stun grenades technique, but instead of flashes, we dropped coins. It helped, but we both got tagged as we tried getting into the cars. The only difference was that we were a few pesos down, too. Vendors 1, Deakins nil.

On the way home, we hiked up a hill to a place called Holy Land, which is some sort of pilgrimage site about ten kilometers off the former base, stopped by the Nike outlet store on the highway and bought shoes, had some frozen yoghurt and more junk food and tried going home via the new Mindanao avenue link on the NLEX. Now I’ve done this route before, but this time I tried out my new Garmin GPS device to see if there was a faster way to get onto C5 and head south. Big mistake.

I typed in “Katipunan” and let the GPS do the rest. Perhaps it was my big fingers or clumsy inputting, but things started becoming progressively unfamiliar. These are state of the art devices, but they are only as good as the information you enter: garbage in, garbage out. I ignored it at first because aside from the fact that we were engrossed in conversation, I figured that the GPS knew more than I would, surely. But by the time I was ready to abort, it asked me to turn right. So I took one last leap of faith and did what it said. I ended up in an extremely narrow road filled with people. It was like a scene from those movies when the white couple in either a Mercedes or Lexus take a wrong turn and the local toughies stop their basketball game and start walking up the car.

The road narrowed even more to the point where I needed to fold my mirrors in. I couldn’t back up because there was a swarm of tricycles behind us. If it were any tighter I’d have to rub Vaseline on the side of my truck to squeeze through. Things were getting further and further away from the script.

It got to the point where I had to put my window down and poke my head out to negotiate the distance between my fender and the homes that flanked either side of me. Alex was starting to get visibly worried. We were so close to the houses now that I could literally reach out of my window and grab something in their lounge room. I turned to him and very calmly said, “Its alright. We’ll find our way out soon. The trick is to not draw any attention to ourselves.”

Just then, we heard an almighty commotion. There were screams and sparks and plenty of accusatory fingers being pointed directly at us. I could make out the words, “yung Amerikano” leaving the lips of an elderly toothless man. In a matter of seconds there were people surrounding us. I put my head out just far enough to see what everyone was looking up to and saw the two bikes on the roof which had managed to tear out the overhead power lines. Hence the sparks, the darkness and the screams. Meralco nil, residents of barangay, nil; Deakins below zero.

It was obviously an accident, but taking out the power of an entire barangay in the middle of a telenovela was the equivalent of accidentally knocking over a row of Harley Davidsons parked outside a road house diner. In a matter of seconds, my entire married life flashed before my eyes. Oh, sorry, those were still the electrical sparks. But I couldn’t help but feel that I had blown the whole wonderful day we had together and that getting a gate pass for the next time would be as difficult as applying for a VISA in a country where you had committed a crime. Talk about an anti climax.

To cut a very long story short, after the locals used long sticks to untie the broken electrical wires off the car, and I handed over a wad full of cash to cover any inconvenience and we were finally back on a main road, Alex broke the silence first and turned to me and said with the biggest smile, “Dad, today was the best day ever.”

You can’t possibly put a score on that.

Here are a couple of your reactions to Butch Gamboa’s dig at the absence of an access road to and from C5 and the Skyway…

Mr. Butch, thanks for writing about the C5 exit from Skyway. I hope they do something about it. It really baffles me that they did not put it in their plans considering that The Fort is a growth area. – brondial

Mr. Butch, I’ve already asked this same question to Mr. Ed Nepomuceno, Head, Special Projects, Operations And External Affairs of the Skyway/Citra group a couple of months back and here’s his reply verbatim: “There is a plan that is being prepared by the DPWH/URPO that will connect C5 to the Skyway Elevate Main alignment. The plan is being finalized and will be part of DPWH’s road improvement programs for the coming year.” – gonefishing

And one on the lack of “soul” in newer sports cars as discussed by Ulysses Ang…

The new Skyline used a Porsche as its standard – earning its moniker as the “poor man’s Porsche”. Indeed, why buy this instead of buying the Porsche that it set self against? – tangential