The 6th staging of the ARCC!

MANILA, Philippines - Time flies so fast—I can’t believe we’re on the sixth edition of the series as we staged the 1st leg of the Caltex 2013 STV Auto Rally Corporate Challenge (STV-ARCC) one fine summer morning in Tagaytay City last March 23. What is so heartwarming about it is the grid keeps getting bigger every year.

A bit of a background may be in order. This is officially the fourth staging, but the start of the STV ARCC was technically in 2001, also in Tagaytay and ran by veteran rallyist Jun Espino. I say veteran because Jun used to be one of the stalwarts of the Sampaguita Rallies back in the 60’s and 70’s—the glory days of Philippine rallying. “Sampaguita” was our way of “Filipinizing” the Tulip Auto Rallies so popular in Europe then.

It was not until 2010 that we started doing the ARCC as a yearly series. The yawning gap in between may be explained by an unfortunate and embarrassing ARCC event in 2003 held in Subic two years after its first revival, which turned out to be a fiasco. We got burned badly from that nightmarish experience, but you learn valuable lessons the hard way. We laid low for a while and licked our wounds, but our hiatus prepared us for better things to come.

Our eventual partnership with the dedicated and professional team led by Georges Ramirez who now no longer needs to be introduced as the son of racing legend Pocholo Ramirez because he has created his own niche in Philippine motoring, together with Mikko David and Patrick Chua has set us off on a good journey towards an established annual series known as the STV-ARCC.

Since 2010, this series has been a much-anticipated industry event, and our partnership with Georges’ team has anchored itself on an excellent working relationship—partly personal and partly professional.

After good runs in Subic and Clark since 2010, Tagaytay seemed the most logical choice for the next venue of the STV-ARCC—at least for the first leg. We set off blindly, not knowing where to go first or who to see, but Georges and I had set our sights on this cool city, never mind if we didn’t have a set plan just yet. Our team motored to Tagaytay and met with the local officials headed by no less than the mayor of Tagaytay City himself, the Honorable Mayor Abraham” Bambol” Tolentino and the City Administrator, Engineer Gregorio Monreal. From that initial meeting with the kind Mayor where we discussed on camera traffic management in his city for our flagship TV show Motoring Today, everything just seemed to flow smoothly. We had the beginnings of the 2013 STV-ARCC.

Mayor Tolentino thought that a motoring event such as this would be a big plus for his city, especially since it was a validation of our long-time advocacy of road safety.  In his own quiet way, the Mayor has been advocating safe motoring in his beloved Tagaytay where he has been mayor for three terms now. Immediately, he primed his efficient team for the forthcoming event and set his machinery into the action mode.

Because we didn’t have a venue yet for the flag-off and the parc ferme, he virtually endorsed us to the biggest property developer in Tagaytay that is currently building a prestigious project along Aguinaldo Highway, SM Development Corporation.

WIND Residences has a big property by the famous ridge of Tagaytay and there was a big space at the property development site fronting the residential condo buildings that are being built. It was perfect for our needs. Sandro Javier, the Assistant Vice President of SMDC, saw the potential for trumpeting the beauty of the WIND Residences to Tagaytay residents and visitors through this motoring event with no cost at all to the developers and promptly endorsed the project to the SMDC management. It was a win-win scenario for them, and we were happy to provide them this scenario.

Our faithful and loyal partner for the STV-ARCC through the years has been Caltex with Techron. Chevron has always been very vocal about their road safety advocacy in the Philippines over the years, and they have always actively pursued this advocacy. This year again, as in the past, the event is proudly called the 2013 Caltex STV-ARCC, validating the commitment of both Sunshine Television (STV) and Chevron to road safety.

The basic principle of “on time, all the time” is the hallmark of the Sampaguita rally. This is where our advocacy of road safety comes in as a speeding driver becomes a liability rather than an asset in this type of a rally, as opposed to an actual racing event where guts and speed rule the raceway. Discipline on the road is enforced as all factors come into play: maintaining the right speed at all times to ensure that one doesn’t come in too early or too late at any given pit stop, and all traffic and road signs are observed by all the participants at all times. Any violation of traffic rules and regulations—especially speeding—would mean an automatic disqualification from the competition to prevent the erring participant from further endangering the lives of other participants and users of the road. An infraction from the specified time will mean a demerit of points. The discipline exacted is so demanding that just one second too early or too late would actually translate to a demerit of one point for the team. It is definitely a team effort—the driver, route navigator and time navigator must work seamlessly together to ensure victory.

I would like to think that we have successfully parlayed our road safety advocacy into a more interesting and competitive application through a sporting event, like this “on time, all the time” auto rally. It becomes more inter-active, a more dynamic means of getting our message across of how road safety must be taken all too seriously. I am happy to note that most of the industry players have subscribed to this, including Caltex with Techron.

The Caltex team is very young, a compact team of dynamic and aggressive ladies led by Veronica “Vero” Pangilinan, Marilen “Len” Dalistan, and Chai Mendoza. These three ladies run the brand division of Caltex with super efficiency and a single-minded determination to put Caltex with Techron right up there alongside the industry giants.

We had barely three months of preparation for the 1st leg of the 2013 Caltex STV-ARCC. Luckily for us, we had a ready pool of participants— virtually all the automotive manufacturers and importers/distributors that ran in the previous STV-ARCC events had no reservations about joining again this year. Our email invites just kept bouncing back with positive, and enthusiastic, responses: “Yes, we’re definitely in!”

For Georges and his team, though, it was an entirely new rally course, one that would take the cars through scenic Tagaytay and the neighboring Batangas and Cavite areas, but thankfully again, we had some big help from PNP’s Tagaytay Component City Police Station’s OIC and Chief of Police Col. Danilo Berber Buentipo, PNP Col. Renato Bergado and Tagaytay Rescue Chief Clyde Yayong who took charge of traffic management and all had all emergency contingency plans in place to ensure that the rally went on smoothly and without snags. Thank you so much guys.

D-Day: March 23, a beautiful early Saturday morning in the marvelous City of Tagaytay. It was an awesome sight to see all of 17 participating teams in 60 cars of various makes and sizes and colors line up along the WIND Residences property development site. Caltex had put up white tents to serve as hospitality suites and registration sites for the organizers and participants. With colorful buntings all around, pristine white tents pitched all around the area and a red and white signage proclaiming Caltex’s support of the event, and SM Wind Residences participation in the 2013 STV-ARCC, all passers-by stopped and took notice of the big motoring event that was happening that bright Saturday morning when the wind was cool but the sun was gloriously shining. It was perfect weather for the Caltex 2013 STV-ARCC.

Our guests of honor arrived early; unfortunately, at the last minute Mayor Bambol sent word that he couldn’t make it to the opening ceremonies. Ms. Fe Agudo, president of AVID (Association of Vehicle Importers and Distributors) as well as president of HARI (Hyundai Asia Resources, Inc.), together with Atty. Rommel Gutierrez, president of CAMPI (Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc) and Vice President of Toyota Motor Philippines, both representing the automotive industry in the country, together with Mandy Eduque, Director for Sports of the AAP (Automobile Association of the Philippines), welcomed the participants and acknowledged that it’s “the country’s biggest motorsport event” the biggest grid in the history of Sampaguita Rally in the Philippines. After a brief program hosted by Motoring Today’s Youth Ambassador for Road Safety, Tin Gamboa (DJ Suzy of Magic 89.9) our three honored guests flagged off the participants and the Caltex 2013 STV- ARCC was off to a roaring start.

While the participants were wending their way across unknown routes, the top officials of the car manufacturers/importers and some media friends took the opportunity to sit around and chat, a happy mingling of competing brands but friendly people exchanging jolly banters while awaiting the flag-in of their teams. The show of sportsmanship in this motorsport event was heartwarming.

I enjoyed the company of Danny Isla, president of Lexus Manila who came with his lieutenant Carlo Chungunco; Isuzu VP Art Balmadrid and his lieutenant Timmy De Leon; Mitsubishi Motors’ VP for Marketing Services Froy Dytianquin and Ad and Promo Manager Arlan Reyes, Autohub’s Willy Tee Ten of the MINI Team; BMW’s Marketing Director Glen Dasig and Karl Magsuci; Hyundai’s Paeng Batuigas; Mazda’s VP and director for customer service Dave Macasadia; Peugeot’s marketing director Dong Magsajo; and media friends  like Al “Sir Paul” Mendoza, Top Gear’s Vernon Sarne, Power Wheels’ Ira Panganiban and Star’s Jeff Reyes.

By early afternoon, the cars started trekking back in, having finished the short but challenging route charted by Georges. There was a beeline for the buffet lunch that awaited the participants and ARCC friends, and over a hearty lunch, Willy Tee Ten, Team Manager of the MINI Rally Team tensely awaited his teammates’ return, woefully admitting that he actually missed a checkpoint. Willy’s team is the 2012 champion, and Willy says the pressure is mounting on them to retain the championship for this year.

A long lunch segued to merienda in one uninterrupted flow of shared stories, jokes and anecdotes over platefuls of lechon and kaldereta and bowls of Tagaytay’s famous bulalo, then ginataan and turon as our table got bigger and wider, the banter getting fiercer and more raucous as the last car was flagged in.

This is the first leg of the Caltex 2013 STV-ARCC and for the first time, we are holding a two-leg series this year.  Our friends in the industry feel that a wait of one year for the next ARCC challenge is too long and urged us at STV to make it a 2-leg series. This year, we have acceded, and henceforth, the STV ARCC will have two legs every year, starting 2013.

As mentioned in a previous column, this year’s first leg in Tagaytay will score 30 percent of the aggregate scores; the second leg which we will hold sometime in November in Subic will account for 70 percent of the aggregate score. By the end of the second leg, we will be able to determine the year’s champion based on this formula.

The Awards Night was set for Wednesday, April 2 at the La Colina of the Valle Verde Country Club. Expect another raucous night when virtually all industry players show up in one venue, everyone eagerly awaiting the results of the highly contested championship.  This is exactly what happened that evening as the winning teams and the individual winners went up the stage to claim their trophies and their rightful place in STV-ARCC’s history. Some of our friends in the industry stayed on and enjoyed a late night of more single malts and Pinoy-style burgers.

The rally results are detailed somewhere in this page, so I need not go into this. Suffice it to say that Willy and the rest of the MINI Team had fretted unnecessarily that Saturday afternoon of the rally after all. For 2013’s 1st leg, they emerged the team winner. And for the individual champion, it is Kia Rally Team #5. Don’t rest on your laurels guys – there is still the second leg to hurdle in November and some corporate teams have vowed to improve their dismal showing in the first leg.

For the second leg, we go back to Subic where we held the 2010 and 2011 events with 57 cars on the grid and a total of 16 Corporate Teams represented in the competition. This early, we are already setting the stage for leg 2 of the Caltex 2013 STV Auto Rally Corporate Challenge as the competition gets more and more contentious.

Thank you to all the participating brands (manufacturers and importers) and to all the teams that took part in the first leg of the Caltex 2013 STV-ARCC.  Thank you as well to our media friends who are always supportive of all the STV endeavors. To everyone who has been a part of the STV-ARCC, may your tribe increase but not your girth. This would not have been half as successful without the kind support and patronage that you have shown us in STV. And thank you too to the men and women of Sunshine Television led by Jenny Pineda, Mackie Maquiraya and my son Ray Louis “Wee” Gamboa, along with Eva Reyes, Raul Promeda, Matt Mallari, Dodong Desamero, Uly Casiano, Fe Doroja, Willie Bialen, Ricky Francisco and Susing Sapilan who worked tirelessly through long nights and longer weekends to ensure a snag-free and seamless event.

Despite five exciting rallies behind us, the STV Auto Rally Corporate Challenge is still very much a work in progress. There is still much room for improvement, for refinements. Like wine, we would like to think that we are maturing nicely at the STV-ARCC; like cheese we hope that the aging process gives us more bite, sharper and more interesting. Like this excellent combination, the friendly competition and camaraderie in the Philippine motoring industry will thrive and remain hale and hearty.

Happy motoring!